


Please Leave A Light On When You Go

by skullkidd



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Emo kid crying, Everyone Is Gay, Except Vanitas because he's very adamantly bisexual, F/M, M/M, So many references to the office, Somehow Roxas is both a main and secondary character, honestly... I don't even know, just a lot of sad, roxas and ventus are twins but sora and vani are not because that's how my brain operates, there's also a gorilla bong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-15 09:02:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15409566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skullkidd/pseuds/skullkidd
Summary: “Why do you even care?! We’re not even friends, are we? You just feel bad for me because of Hayner and Xion and you’ll probably never care about me the same way I care about you. So stop telling me that you care and looking at me like I’m some stray cat you found on the side of the road! I don’t need you to fix me, Ventus!”Or the one where Vanitas is hopelessly in love with Roxas, until he meets Ventus.





	1. Caterpillar

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote 32 pages in about 5 days. I haven't slept. Please help me
> 
> This is kind of a mess of sorts. I'm uploading in two parts because writer's block is kicking my ass and I need some incentive to actually finish it. Please yell at me if i dont.
> 
> Hope you all enjoy!!!

Vanitas met Ventus on a Saturday night.

Aqua and Terra had gotten engaged a year or so prior, Vanitas wasn’t one to closely follow other people’s lives. He met Aqua in his first year of college, and they became fast friends. She was his Residence Advisor for his dorm floor, and for some reason they kept in contact. A year later, the two were even closer, and Aqua sent him an early invite to her wedding six months ago. Some time later, and here he is, sitting at a table at a wedding all alone wallowing over the end of his most recent fling that he didn’t really care about a whole lot anyway, it was more so the fact that yet _another_ relationship had failed and he was beginning to wonder what exactly it would take to make just one person stay. Olette was a nice girl, but she was just such an optimist and it’s not like Vanitas was a pessimist, but Olette was the kind of person who could get hit by a car and end up in a wheelchair and still find something good from it, and Vanitas was a bit of a downer and, in his opinion, too much of a negative energy for someone as cheerful as her, and as he expressed his concerns to her over a few too many glasses of Girl’s Night Out sangria, Olette chose to let Vanitas figure himself out. She left him the next morning with a kiss on the forehead and her “best wishes”. Vanitas wasn’t sure how someone so good had been with him at all, but he didn’t deserve her, and he let her go because of that. They remained as decent of friends as exes can be.

Watching Aqua and Terra’s first dance reminded Vanitas that nobody will ever love him and he should just give up on trying to make relationships work and resign to a life of living a 9-5 job before prematurely dying alone due to loneliness. It’s as that thought passes through his head that Sora plops himself down in the chair next to Vanitas’ slouched figure, mouth full of whatever dessert they’re serving at the dessert table. Sora swallows and nudges Vanitas with his elbow. “Why so glum?”

Vanitas huffs, turning his body to face his brother and rolling his eyes. “Weddings are overrated. Aqua is resigning herself to becoming Terra’s property and I feel as though that is far less than a cause for celebration.”

“Oh, cry me a river. You’ll meet someone else soon enough and forget ever even being sad over Olette. Just like you forgot being sad over everyone else before her.”

“It’s not just Olette, nobody will ever love me and I’m just accepting my fate. I’m never dating again. I’m buying a cat from Kijiji and getting a job at a paper company.”

“Oh Jim, you’ll find your Pam,” Sora says with a lopsided smile, and Vanitas rolls his eyes, but smiles just a little nonetheless. It’s gone as quickly as it arrives, though, it fades again, as Vanitas returns to watching Aqua and Terra share loving gazes at each other while Vanitas wonders if anyone will ever look at him like that.

* * *

Vanitas is around 6 drinks deep when he bumps into Roxas.

He’d known Roxas mostly from their Psychology floor from year 1 in University, before Vanitas switched majors and Roxas transferred to Uptown. They were decently close, being on the same floor for that year since they’d both checked the box for the “Psychology and Anthropology themed floor”, to both of their regrets. They unanimously agreed the only good things to come out of that floor were each other and Aqua. Roxas and Vanitas gained the reputation of the fourth floor drunkards by the other people on their floor who never wanted to do anything but study. They were bar buddies, and they were forced to talk to Aqua a whole lot about their floor-mates’ noise complaints. Vanitas also might have been hopelessly in love with him from the first moment they met, but he’d nearly forced those feelings away until he spotted the boy from across the room.

Vanitas wonders why he hadn’t noticed Roxas before crossing over from tipsy territory, but he walks up to the blonde and clasps a hand on his shoulder. “Roxas fuckin’ Eames. Been a while, hasn’t it?”

Roxas turns, a grin quickly spreading across his face. “Vanitas! Good to see you, Aqua said you were here but I hadn’t been able to find you. How’s it going?”

Vanitas doesn’t have the heart to tell Roxas that his life is an absolute shitshow and he hates his current major even more so than their old mutual one and he’s been through 3 proper significant others in the time it’s been since he’d last seen him. So he instead forces a smile and says, “pretty great! What about you?”

“Well, Uptown isn’t nearly as fun as Downtown, you thought the fourth floor was full of boring assholes, come visit me,” Roxas laughs, nudging Vanitas in the side. “I won’t say I don’t miss it, but the program I’m in is twice as good and half the price,” he shrugs. “Nice that Aqua didn’t forget about me, though.”

Vanitas follows Roxas’s gaze to where Aqua and Terra are speaking to some guests Vanitas doesn’t know. He watches them for a moment, wondering how two people can be so sure of each other to be willing to get the government involved. Two of Vanitas’s past failed serious relationships came to end because Vanitas couldn’t even bring himself to move a toothbrush into their apartment. It’s completely foreign to him.

“I don’t think Aqua could forget about anyone,” Vanitas says.

Roxas laughs, finally managing to pull Vanitas’s gaze away from Aqua and Terra. “You’re probably right. Hey, I should probably introduce you to my boyfriend!”

The word _boyfriend_ coming out of Roxas’s mouth in reference to someone who wasn’t Vanitas would have absolutely obliterated him a year or so ago, back when he was so hopelessly in love with Roxas he couldn’t even think straight, pun intended. His undying love for Roxas came out of nowhere, and after 18 years of battling bisexuality, he’d finally accepted that he was in love with a person with a penis. That was about as far as his revelations went, though, because he could never bring himself to admit to Roxas that he’d liked him specifically. Olette had started out as a way to force himself to get over his undying love to Roxas, and by the time it’d turned into something more, she was already halfway out the door.

Vanitas follows Roxas in his own sulking glory as they walk towards a short guy in camo pants and Vanitas finds himself already picking the dude apart out of bitterness for him stealing the love of Vanitas’s life. _Camo pants at a wedding, good God._

Roxas introduces Vanitas to Hayner with a grin and a look of absolute love that Vanitas would have cried about in the bath a year ago, but now he just has to swallow the lump in his throat and shake the guy’s hand.

Vanitas gets even angrier while talking to Hayner as he realizes that this guy is exactly the kind of person he could picture Roxas being with. If not himself, Vanitas could only see Roxas with the Hayner’s of the world; eternally good-looking, charismatic and clearly narcissistic but still disgustingly nice at the same time. Roxas was one of the nicest people Vanitas has ever met, he’d probably take a bullet for anyone, and Hayner’s bright brown eyes and striking smirk is exactly the kind of opposition to Roxas’s 5’5” goofy lopsided smile that reminded Vanitas of his own brother in the least creepy way possible needed. They were the power couple Vanitas spent the entirety of his first year of University and honestly all the way until that moment wishing himself and Roxas could be. He was happy for him despite being so crushed by it. Just having one single conversation with Hayner made Vanitas feel even worse about himself; he didn’t deserve Roxas anyway. He was too good, and that opposition between Roxas and himself would have inevitably driven them down the same road himself and Olette just crashed their Mercedes on, and he wasn’t sure if being an explosive ex of Roxas’s would be any better than pining after him for two long ass years.

He found it unlikely.

His train of thought leads him into unintentionally accepting an invitation to Roxas and Hayner’s house the next weekend for a “small get together with some friends from Uptown”, which Vanitas doesn’t even realize he’s accepted until Roxas is telling Vanitas he’ll text him the address on Friday. Vanitas sputters a little before “I should be getting home” escapes his mouth. He says a half-hearted goodbye to Roxas and Hayner and leaves to track down Sora and go home.

* * *

Vanitas had every intention of faking sick when Roxas texted him that Friday. _Oh, I’d love to come tomorrow but I came down with Ebola-_

He doesn’t get around to it, though, because Roxas was the one asking and he couldn’t ever say no to him. Roxas could ask Vanitas to hide a body in a sewer and one look into those bright blue eyes and he’d be a goner. So that’s how he ends up at Roxas and Hayner’s place the next night, already tipsy when he steps out of the cab and onto the sidewalk in front of the house that was far nicer than he’d imagined it. Roxas didn’t come from a particularly wealthy family, and by the looks of the place, Vanitas could only assume that Hayner did. Bright brown eyes, hot as hell, and inherently rich- Vanitas couldn’t even dream of competing.

He was about to turn and hop right back into the cab and pretend he’d gotten the address wrong, but the car was already speeding away, leaving Vanitas standing on the sidewalk alone with nothing in his hands but a backpack filled with hard liquor. He wonders if he’d packed enough to get him through the night. He takes a shaky breath before walking up the steps and opening the door. He’s slapped across the face by the stench of weed, vodka, and vomit, and has to take another deep breath before taking his first step into the party.

He walks around a bit, feeling more and more out of place with every drunker-than-him Uptown student who bumps into him. Vanitas was never really a people person, what with his chronic introversion and social anxiety, and eventually gives up his half-assed search for Roxas and sits down at their kitchen bar, digging out one of his three handles of Captain Morgan and beginning to drink it straight. He gets to about halfway down the bottle before figuring he’s drunk enough to handle socializing.

Vanitas attempts to hide himself in his far-too-big gray sweater, though it doesn’t really save him from much. He sits down on a couch in the living room, and stays there for a while. Eventually a game of suck-and-blow begins forming around him, and he’s too awkward to get up and leave, so he finds himself being included in the game, much to his dismay. He’s sitting between a blonde girl who’s definitely older than him but also definitely dropping the card on purpose when it gets to her turn to pass it to him, and he wonders just how bad of an idea fucking her at the love of his life’s house would be.

Not bad enough to not do it, apparently.

He finds out her name is Larxene as they’re walking up the stairs to find a bedroom to lock themselves in. It’s over pretty quickly, though, because Vanitas ends up having to cut their galavant short when he looks away from her naked body and his eyes are met with a framed picture of Roxas and Hayner on the bedside table. He lies and says he has to puke from the liquor, and after a quick visit to the bathroom, he walks back downstairs. He notices Larxene’s shirt is on inside out. He doesn’t mention it to her.

He returns back to his original seat, pulling the remainder of his half-drank bottle of Rum, and begins to drink it straight. He looks over and sees Roxas digging through the fridge, and walks over to him, leaning against the counter. “Nice party.” Roxas jumps, slamming his head into the shelf above him and rubbing his head as he stands. “Sorry,” Vanitas says, taking a step closer to the boy. “Hey, can I tell you something?”

Roxas looks confused, but doesn’t really say much, and so Vanitas continues, though whatever sanity is left in his drunkenly obliterated brain is screaming at him to call Sora and go the fuck home because the words about to escape his mouth are not words that he should ever even think about saying. “I used to have a massive crush on you. Like, ridiculously. I was obsessed with you. And now you’ve got this amazing boyfriend and we lost contact because I’m too nervous to even talk to you half the time so it’s my fault anyway, but honestly, I don’t think anyone will ever actually love me and it really kinda sucks.”

Roxas blinks a few times before speaking. “You must be one of Roxas’s friends.”

Vanitas raises an eyebrow at him. “What are you talking about?”

He holds his hand out towards Vanitas. “My names Ventus.”

Vanitas stares at it for a moment, before a very specific memory of creeping through Roxas’s instagram and coming across a picture of him and a twin brother comes to his brain. Vanitas takes a quick step backwards.

“Fuck. Fuck, I am so sorry-”

Ventus just laughs, shaking his head. “No worries, man. Your secret’s safe with me.”

Vanitas stares at him for a moment, then blinks a few times before speaking. “Thanks.”

“I think there’s a game of King’s Cup going on in the living room, wanna come?”

Vanitas stares at Ventus for a moment, picking out differences between him and his brother. When he realizes the only one his drunk brain can pick out is that Vanitas is only in love with one of them, he finds himself nodding. “Sure.”

* * *

Vanitas doesn’t have a whole lot of friends. Roxas starts inviting him to more outings, and he begins returning the favor. He finds Roxas gets along really well with Vanitas’s younger sister, Xion, and Sora. Vanitas always finds himself wondering what his life would be like with Roxas as a more prominent part of it, but every single time he starts thinking about what could be, the word _Hayner_ cuts through his thought process and reminds him that it’s not something that will ever probably happen. The more he hangs around with Roxas and Hayner, the more he finds that he’d been missing a lot more than he thought by remaining a recluse for the past 19 years of his life. Roxas and Hayner, despite being disgustingly in love, are surprisingly inclusive to Vanitas’s current but ever-present singularity.

Three months into their redefined friendship, Ventus breaks up with his girlfriend and moves into Roxas’s house. Roxas starts inviting Ventus to their Friday night bar crawls, and Vanitas starts learning a bit more about the boy who he’d professed his love of his brother to only a few short months before. Ventus, the younger of the two twins, enjoyed poetry and video games and star gazing. Roxas was more of a social butterfly, and Vanitas quickly picked up on Ventus’s introversion. There was a night where Ventus brought up Vanitas’s _I don’t think anyone will ever actually love me_ comment from the night they met, and they’d started to talk about mutual insecurities over a few passings around of Hayner’s prized gorilla bong. Vanitas made sure he was high enough to not worry about slipping up again about his feelings towards Ventus’s brother before being willing to discuss it.

“The issue I find with myself is that, no matter how good I have it in a relationship, I always let my guilt get in the way of it ever going far enough for me to actually want to keep it going.”

“What do you mean?”

Vanitas sighs, turning slowly to face Ventus and closes his eyes in an effort to concentrate. “Like… I’ll meet someone, fall in love with them like a car going 90 kilometers an hour in a 50 zone, then miss a turn and hit a tree. You know?”

Ventus pauses for a moment. “No.”

“‘Course you don’t. You’ve only been in, what, one serious relationship?”

Ventus laughs. “Yeah. It sucks. How have you done it so many times?”

Vanitas would have been incredibly triggered by this comment had he not been higher than the Empire State Building. Still, he eyes Hayner’s gorilla bong and wonders how many hits he can take before Ventus asks again. “I just got used to people leaving, I guess. I don’t know, it’s like, I can’t commit to anyone, but I also can’t leave when I know I should. And then they get tired of the commitment issues and they pack up, and I’m all alone again. My life would be so much easier if I could just balls up and leave when I know I should instead of beating the dead horse.”

“Sounds like my life.”

“What do you mean?”

“Me and Naminé were together for 5 years, since tenth grade. We made it a year into college before either of us were willing to accept that it just wasn’t working anymore. I don’t think either of us would have even come to terms with it had I not came home from class early and caught her with some other guy. It sucked, it still sucks, but at least now we don’t have to deal with trying to stay together anymore. We fell out of love a while ago but we both refused to admit it and we were both too scared to be alone, I guess. I miss her a lot sometimes, because I just got so used to having her around, you know? You spend 5 years with a person and they become like a second part of you.”

Vanitas found himself thinking about Olette again, and how he never even really noticed her absence after she left him hungover on a Tuesday morning. He hadn’t loved her, and he was sure she hadn’t loved him, but they filled each other’s voids until it didn’t work anymore. “Wish I knew what that was like.”

Ventus doesn’t answer, and when Vanitas looks over, he finds the blonde boy staring at him strangely. “Do you still like Roxas?”

“What?” Vanitas laughs, trying to brush off the awkwardness of the question.

“Come on, man, we’re friends now. You can tell me.”

Vanitas sighs, falling backwards onto the ground from his cross-legged position and staring up at Roxas’s living room roof. “Not as much. I did, a lot, in first year. We kinda grew apart, which was probably my fault because I was too embarrassed of my feelings to keep up communication, and when I saw him at the wedding with Hayner it just kinda brought up all those old feelings I tried so hard to bury. I’m good, though.” He looks over at Ventus, who’s staring at him with mild concern. Vanitas laughs and shoves his arm a little. “I’m good, man. I swear.”

Ventus cracks a smile, and Vanitas realizes with a sinking feeling that him and Roxas smile the same. Ventus’s eyes are a shade or two lighter blue, but that damned smile is the same. Something hits him in the stomach, and he can’t quite place it in that moment. They stare at each other for a moment longer, Vanitas digging his nails into his palms before Ventus notices and places a comforting hand on Vanitas’s arm, and they sit like that, in silence, until Vanitas jumps at the sound of footsteps on the stairs and sits up to see Hayner and Roxas heading towards them. Hayner’s topless and doing up his pants and Vanitas makes a gagging face to Ventus, which makes the blonde laugh. Roxas rolls his eyes, grabbing a sweater from the hook by the door and tossing it at the taller brunette. “We’re going for midnight breakfast. You kids wanna come?”

Vanitas hops to his feet instantly.

* * *

Vanitas moves in with Roxas, Hayner and Ventus at the end of the summer, deciding to take a year off school to work so as to not be completely drowning in student loans upon graduation. Sora cries, even though Vanitas explains more than once that he’s literally just moving across the city. He doesn’t tell him that he’ll miss him, too.

Sora and Xion visit him a week or so after he moves in. He shows them around the house, making a specific note to put Hayner’s gorilla bong in the brunette’s room and lock the fucking door. He has to put an air freshener in every corner of the house to mask the potent smell of marijuana, as if Sora and Xion aren’t already depressingly aware of his habits. Sora was the intended designated driver for the night, which goes slightly awry when Vanitas returns to the house after a walk around the block with Xion to find his younger brother taking shots out of Roxas’s deer-shaped candle holder in the kitchen. Vanitas is quick to reprimand him, to which Roxas and Sora both moan about how _Vanitas never lets Sora have any fun._

“I’m a senior this year, man. You really think I’ve never taken a shot from a decorative deer before?” Sora asks, smiling and showing his braces and reminding Vanitas of just how young his younger brother is.

“Whatever, but you’re both crashing here tonight.”

Xion begins to complain, saying she has plans in the morning and needs to be home because her friends won’t want to drive all the way to Uptown to pick her up. Vanitas tells her to bitch to Sora about it, which she does.

Xion hangs out with them for a few hours, playing a few traumatizing rounds of Cards Against Humanity and taking a few shots of Vanitas-approved Sour Puss Raspberry before heading to bed. As soon as she’s out of sight, Roxas looks over at Vanitas with a smirk. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you this, but your sister’s hot.”

Sora punches him in the arm, and Vanitas rolls his eyes. “My _sister_ is 16. Aren’t you gay anyway?” Vanitas asks, and Roxas shrugs.

“I can appreciate a hot girl. Plus that’s, what, 3 years? No biggie, as if I'd ever actually do anything.”

“You’re perverted,” Vanitas rolls his eyes. It’s at that moment that he looks up and spots Hayner heading down the stairs, prized gorilla bong in his hands and Vanitas is in fight-mode immediately. “Absolutely not. Not while Sora and Xion are here.”

“Is that a fucking gorilla bong?” Sora laughs, jumping to his feet to meet Hayner at the bottom of the stairs.

“You bet your ass, kid,” Hayner smiles, glancing at Vanitas and rolling his eyes at the death-stare he’s giving Hayner. “Oh, lighten up, will you? The kid’s 17.”

“You’re 20. You don’t need to be getting high schoolers blazed.”

“Fuck off, Vani,” Sora says, taking the grinder and ziploc bag from Hayner and getting to work. Vanitas watches to his own horror as his innocent little brother grinds Hayner’s nugs of weed and stuffs some into the bowl.

Sora, to Vanitas’s surprise, is fun as hell to get high with. Doesn’t mean he approves of his kid brother smoking with the biggest idiots he knows- Hayner, specifically, in the most loving way possible because he'd had become a surprisingly close friend of Vanitas’s-, but there wasn’t much he could do in the way of stopping it. Ventus boots up his Xbox and starts a round of Call of Duty and him and Sora begin battling it out. Vanitas watches as the two of them become faster friends than himself and Ventus had.

He finds himself wondering if maybe, just maybe, he’d finally found people he could belong with.

* * *

Xion visits Vanitas for a few nights only a few weeks into her first semester of 11th grade. She walks into his house with two duffel bags packed full with shit, and Vanitas raises an eyebrow at her. “You moving in?”

Xion huffs, tossing her bags onto the couch and glaring at him. “Grandpa is driving me insane. I need a break.”

Vanitas laughs, rolling his eyes. “Hey, could be worse.”

“Yeah, I could still live with dad,” she mutters, cutting herself off by coughing a few times into her sleeve. “But seriously, Vani, Grandpa is _such_ a jerk sometimes. Trust me, if he knew you were gay, he’d probably write you out of his will.”

Vanitas snorts. “I’d have to be in the will first. Pretty sure all his life’s work is written in to go to Sora. We both know how much Grandpa loves Sora. And I’m not _gay_ , don’t bi-erase me. There’s a difference.”

“Not if you’re Grandpa,” Xion giggles, but her smile fades as she looks over her shoulder. Vanitas turns, seeing Ventus there, and waves to him before turning back to Xion. “Does he know? About… You know?”

“Ventus? Oh, yeah. He’s the only one, though, so keep your mouth shut,” he threatens her lightheartedly, and she laughs before coughing again. “You okay? Seems like you’re getting sick.”

Xion coughs a few more times before shaking her head. “I’m good, just the changing seasons. I’ll be fine.”

Vanitas nods, turning his attention back to Ventus. “What’s up?”

Ventus shrugs. “Just came to hang out. A person can only sit in their room for so long.”

Vanitas rolls his eyes at the prospect of Ventus getting bored of sitting in his room. Ventus’s best day ever would consist of him buried in pizza boxes and 2L bottles of Dr. Pepper, playing Call of Duty until his eyes dry out of his head. “Roxas and Hayner gone?” Vanitas asks, and Ven nods. “Figures. You guys wanna go to Arby’s? I’m starving.” Ventus stares at Vanitas with an incredulous look, and he raises his eyebrows at the blonde. “What?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Xion nods, pointing at Ventus with her thumb. “I’m with him. Who the hell gets hungry and suggests Arby’s?”

“You can go the hell home,” Vanitas says to her, and she laughs in response.

“I’m serious, though. We’re not going to Arby’s. We can go to Taco Bell, or we can go nowhere,” Ventus says, though Vanitas can tell he’s suppressing a smile.

Vanitas rolls his eyes anyway. “You guys are assholes. Whatever. I could go for a crunchwrap anyway.”

They return home from their dinner run at around 10p.m., meeting Roxas and Hayner in the driveway. Vanitas hands his bags to Xion and begins helping them with their groceries, which he realizes quickly is just bags full of alcohol. He looks up at Roxas, who shrugs. “Party tonight.”

Vanitas rolls his eyes. “Coulda given me a heads-up, I need to take a shower.”

“Yeah, you smell like shit,” Ventus calls over his shoulder as he opens the front door with his foot, arms full of Taco Bell takeout. Vanitas kicks his shoe off in the blonde’s direction, hitting him in the back of the head and causing him to drop one of the drinks. “Nice going, asshole!”

“Don’t be a dick then!”

“You’re cleaning that up!” Ventus yells, closing the door behind him with his foot, and Vanitas laughs, shaking his head.

The four of them head inside, stepping over Ventus who’s begun cleaning the spilled drink. Vanitas drops his bags off in the kitchen before grabbing a roll of paper towel and heading over to help Ventus with the clean-up.

“Staying for the party?” Ventus asks, and Vanitas looks up at him.

“I don’t really have anywhere else to go,” he shrugs, and Ventus narrows his eyes at him.

“Xion said her and Sora live with your grandparents,” he says, and Vanitas nods. “Why’s that?”

Vanitas shrugs again. “Our mom died years ago, and our dad’s a deadbeat. Not much else to it.”

Ventus pauses for a moment. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

Vanitas shakes his head, though he takes to staring at the ground. “It’s okay. Just not really something I like talking about.”

Ventus doesn’t say anything in response, and the two of them continue cleaning in silence.

* * *

People begin crowding into their home at around 11:30pm. They’re, for the most part, friends of Hayner's, and Vanitas has to push away the awkwardness when he makes eye contact with Larxene from across the room. She waves, looking significantly less uncomfortable by the situation than he’s sure he does, and he makes a mental note to avoid her like the plague and get drunker than he knows he should as a way to cope with her presence. She’d texted him a few times after their escapade at Roxas and Hayner’s first party, and he’d ignored most of them. She looked like she wasn’t too mad about it, though he doesn’t want to run the risk of an interaction either way.

He mostly hangs around Ventus, the two of them quietly judging everyone else in the house and laughing amongst themselves, while taking shots every time Hayner makes a fool out of himself, which gets them _very_ drunk _very_ fast. For the brother of the guy Vanitas has been hopelessly in love with for the past two years, Ventus had become a surprisingly good friend of Vanitas’s.

Xion approaches them, drink in hand and a grin on her face. “This is _so_ cool.”

“Yeah, awesome right! Even cooler when you never, ever mention it to anyone!” Vanitas says, and Xion’s smile fades immediately.

“You’re not serious. Of course I’m gonna tell people I’m at a college party. Look, that guy over there has a bong shaped like a gorilla. That’s so cool.”

“Fucking Hayner,” Vanitas mutters, rolling his eyes. “Whatever, just make sure Grandma and Grandpa don’t find out.”

Xion looks like she’s about to respond, though slams her jaw closed as she looks between Ventus and Vanitas. Vanitas turns, seeing Roxas approaching them and sending him a small smile. “Hey.”

Roxas approaches them, stumbling enough for Vanitas’s heart to drop to his feet when he realizes the blonde is drunker than drunk. Roxas falls almost completely over his own feet, Vanitas catching him and Ventus trying his best to steady the red solo in his hands to prevent the second mass spill of the day. “Hey… Sora, right?” Roxas asks, narrowing his eyes at the black-haired boy. “You look so much like Vanitas.”

Vani laughs, shaking his head at the mess of a boy in his arms. He forces Roxas onto his feet before responding. “Sora’s at home. You okay?”

Roxas grins, his eyes drooping just a little. He gives Vanitas a thumbs up before looking at Xion. “Hey Xion. You’re hot.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Vanitas says, taking Roxas by one arm, Ventus grabbing the other. They lead the boy, who’s beginning to fall asleep as they walk, up the stairs and to his room, which wouldn’t be an easy feat even if they were sober. They lay him down on the bed, and Vanitas pulls a blanket over his body. “Well, that was an experience.”

Ventus laughs, shaking his head as he stares at his knocked out brother on the bed. “He was always the rowdy one.”

“God, someone’s definitely hotboxing Hayner’s room,” Vanitas says, scrunching his nose. “Shit smells awful.”

“Wanna walk over to the corner store?” Ventus suggests, and Vanitas nods.

“Absolutely.”

They make their way out of the room, down the stairs, and to the kitchen. They each take a few shots of whatever the hell is already portioned out in plastic disposable shot glasses before Vanitas tracks down Hayner and tells him to keep an eye on Xion, and he and Ventus head to the door. Ventus is shrugging a jacket on, and as Vanitas is telling Ventus he left his in his room, turning to go back to get it, he makes eye contact with Larxene. “Never mind, I’m good. Let’s go.”

“It’s really cold out-” Ven begins to argue, and Vanitas shoots him a glare.

“Let’s go.”

Ventus puts his hands up innocently before stepping back and letting Vanitas open the door in front of him.

They step outside, Vanitas immediately getting hit by the cold air and only slightly regretting chickening out of a confrontation with Larxene. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets, and Ventus gives him a look out of the side of his eye. “Told you it’s cold out.”

“Better than having to deal with what was standing in my way,” he says through his teeth, trying to resist the cold.

“Which was?”

“Larxene,” Vanitas says simply, not really wanting to get into it.

Ventus clearly doesn’t take the hint. “You know her?”

“Yeah, we met at that first party. You know, where you and I met.”

Ventus nods. “And, what, she throw a drink in your face?”

Vanitas shrugs. “Not exactly.”

Ven looks over at him, narrowing his eyes. “You guys…..?” He nods, once, quickly. Ven sticks out his tongue in slight disgust. “She’s a bitch. Pretty low, even for you.”

Vanitas nudges him in the arm with his elbow. “I don’t know, it was a half-assed attempt at getting over Roxas.”

Ven pauses before responding. “You still like him?”

Vanitas shrugs. He’d become less and less able to talk to Ventus about things like that in recent times than he used to be, for reasons he couldn’t ever speak of. “I don’t know. Nobody else has really come along. I just took what I could get, I guess. I can’t imagine anyone else wants me.”

Ven looks at him with slight concern. “You hooked up with Larxene because you don’t think anyone else wants you? Because of Roxas?”

Vanitas shakes his head, clenching his jaw from the cold. “Not because of Roxas. I’ve come to terms with him and Hayner. I think I was hung up on him for so long because he’s kind of the one who helped me come to terms with my sexuality. That was only half the struggle, though, cause now there’s the whole problem of me liking both genders and not one member of either party wanting to be with me.”

Ventus gives him a weird look. He can’t quite place it, but it gives him something he refuses to call butterflies in his stomach. He forces the feeling away, as he has been for the past few months of becoming closer friends with Ventus. If he doesn’t acknowledge them, they’ll have to go away.

_Right?_

They make it to the corner store with nobody else around. Vanitas coins this to being because it’s around 1a.m., though he’s grateful for the isolation. He’s not really a people person.

Ventus pays for both coffees with a small smile in his direction, and Vanitas has to look away from him. He hands him his coffee and the two walk out the door, the cold returning to Vanitas’s skin and making him shiver. Ventus pauses for a moment before setting down his coffee and shrugging off his coat. “Here, put this on.”

Vanitas just stares at it, willing the butterflies away. “W-what?”

Ven rolls his eyes, though it lacks any malice. “I was warm on the way here, you can be warm on the way back.”

“But-”

“Vani. Put the jacket on.”

Vanitas wants to argue, he’d way rather suffer if it meant Ventus would be warm, but he finds himself unable to say no in a similar fashion to Roxas’s pull on him. They’re so different than each other, but so, so similar.

Vanitas swallows a lump in his throat.

They walk back towards the house, hearing the music blaring from two blocks away. Vanitas digs his nails into his palms, his stomach doing flips at the thought of going back into the party. Ventus seems to take notice because he takes Vanitas’s hand in his own and pulls Vanitas’s fingernails out of his hands. He doesn’t look over at him when he does this, though, and Vanitas is grateful for that.

He waits for a few nervous moments for Ventus to drop his hand, and he does, though it takes him way longer than Vanitas thinks it should. He shoves his hands back into his pockets and looks over at Ven, who gives him a small smile.

The butterflies make a hard comeback at the sight of that smile.

_Fuck._

* * *

They get back to the party to find it slowly dissipating. He panics a little when he can’t find Xion, though he discovers fairly quickly that she’s passed out in his own bed with two Advils, a glass of water and a garbage can next to her. Hayner’s sitting in the corner, scrolling through his phone, and looks up at the sight of Vanitas in the doorway. “Hey,” he says, and Vanitas nods in response. “She crashed a little while ago. Don’t worry, I kept her out of trouble.”

Vanitas nods again, both of them looking over at Xion. Hayner chuckles, and Vanitas looks over at him in confusion. “She told me shortly before crashing that she has, and I quote, _‘A huuuuuuuuge crush on Roxas_ ’.”

Vanitas laughs at this. “Where’d that come from?”

“He rose from the dead shortly after you left and started showing her how to make almost his entire arsenal of drinks he uses to impress people. I think that’s also the point where she started getting a little out of hand on the drunk scale.”

“I told you to watch her for that exact reason,” Vanitas says with a raised eyebrow, and Hayner shrugs.

“Roxas is a good guy.”

Vanitas sighs, looking back at Xion. “He is. So is Ven.”

“Speaking of Ven,” Hayner says, getting to his feet. “I like you guys. Together, I mean. I think you balance each other out.”

Vanitas stumbles on his words in an attempt to find some kind of response to this that won’t sound super, _super_ gay. All he can come up with is, “together?”

Hayner stares at him for a moment before raising an eyebrow. “You guys are like best friends. You’ve become basically inseparable. And, listen, don’t tell anyone I told you this, but Roxas was really worried about him when he first moved in here. He was really crushed after Namine. I think you really helped him. He said Ven really cares about your friendship.”

Vanitas feels his heart sink just a bit at the word _friendship_ , though he forces it away. It was one thing to have an uncontrollable arsenal of feelings for Roxas, he did not need to be putting himself through that again, especially not with a straight guy.

He can only nod in response, and Hayner sighs a little. “You gonna stay in here with her?”

Vanitas shakes his head. “Nah, I don’t need her puking on me. I’ll crash on the couch.”

Hayner nods. “Alright. See you in the morning, man,” he says, walking past him and clasping a hand on his shoulder lightly as he leaves. Vanitas watches Xion for a moment longer, smiling just a little, before closing the door behind him on his way out.

He heads downstairs, discovering to his dismay that two of Hayner’s friends, Demyx and Marluxia, have taken residency on their couch, and he sighs, succumbing to his fate of crashing next to his drunk-ass sister.

As he’s heading up the stairs, staring at the ground, he unceremoniously crashes directly into a shirtless Ventus, toothbrush hanging from his mouth. He begins spluttering an apology, and Ventus just laughs, turning and spitting into the sink quickly before responding. “All good. Hayner said you’re crashing on the couch?”

Vanitas shakes his head. “I was gonna, but Demyx and Marluxia are there, I was just gonna sleep next to Xion.”

“I’ve got a Queen if you wanna share,” Ven offers so fucking _casually_ that it makes Vanitas’s stomach flip again. “Yours is just a twin, right?”

Vanitas nods, and he can’t find a single word to say, so Ventus puts his toothbrush back in it’s holder and leaves the bathroom, walking backwards to talk to Vanitas on his way to his own bedroom. “Grab some P.J.s, we’ll make it a slumber party!” He laughs, and Vanitas smiles again, though it fades almost immediately from nervousness as soon as Ventus is out of sight.

He sneaks into his room to not wake his sister, grabbing a pair of loose shorts and a t-shirt before closing the door as quietly as he can behind him. He changes in the bathroom, leaving his clothes by his bedroom door, and knocks lightly on Ventus’s.

Ven opens the door for him, and Vanitas enters slowly, his stomach churning. He doesn’t know why he’s so god damn nervous. Ventus is his friend. He’s his best friend. Vanitas likes Roxas anyway, and Roxas will never love him back and that’s just the way it is. Ventus is his best friend.

He repeats this statement over and over again in his head as he approaches the bed, and crawls into it, having to throw about 6 decorative pillows onto the ground beside him. _Maybe he is gay._ He laughs once at his own thoughts, but it’s gone again as Ventus climbs into the bed next to him. Ventus grabs the remote for the T.V. and turns it on, flipping through channels until he comes across The Office.

Vanitas looks over at him, wondering if he’s finally found his Pam.

They watch for a few minutes, before Ventus breaks the silence. “I’m still drunk.”

Vanitas looks at him, and Ventus looks back. They stare at each other for what feels like forever and Vanitas comes to the halting realization that he’s also still drunk.

Ventus reaches his hand up to poke Vanitas’s cheek. “I’d probably never say this when I’m sober, but you’re really pretty.”

Vanitas smacks his hand away and laughs. “There’s no way you’re _that_ drunk.”

Ventus shrugs. “I’m good at hiding it.”

Vanitas stares at him for a moment longer as the blonde turns his attention back to the T.V. and watches with the smallest smile, occasionally chuckling at one of the one-liners and Vanitas found himself far more entertained by the sparkle in Ventus’s eye than the show, though he’s also slowly drifting off and before he even knows it he’s falling asleep next to him.

* * *

Vanitas wakes up the next morning to an empty bed. He sits up, taking a moment to realize that last night wasn’t a dream and he really did spend the night next to his best friend slash whatever the hell else Vanitas saw him as that he refuses to even acknowledge.

He looks around the room, taking in Ventus’s room in the daylight. It’s all white walls, decorative pillows and just far cleaner than any other boy’s room he’s ever seen. He’s been in Ventus’s room before, but he’d never lingered long enough to really take in the aesthetic. It suits him.

He’s about to get up and track down Ven when the door opens, and the blonde walks in with nothing but a towel covering his waist. Vanitas chokes on the sudden intake of breath he takes at the sight, coughing a few times, and Ven raises an eyebrow at him.

“What?” he asks through the toothbrush hanging from his mouth, and Vanitas just shakes his head, unable to come up with any words to say. Ven rolls his eyes. “Calm down, I’m not changing in here,” he says, then gets a small sly grin. “Unless you want me to.”

Vanitas just stares at him, eyes wide, before Ventus starts laughing.

“You’re too easy. Get dressed, I gotta go get groceries in a bit and I’m making you come with me.”

Ven leaves without another word, and Vanitas shifts his legs a bit, uncomfortably.

Ventus had him hooked.

* * *

It happens, as all fucking awful things do, on a perfectly ordinary day.

Vanitas is doing the vast multitude of dishes stacked up in the kitchen sink from his messes of roommates, and Ventus is sitting at the table, reading him his horoscope.

“Your romantic, sensitive nature comes alive today, Scorpio, and you may find yourself searching for the security of a close lover. There is a longing within you for the company of someone who shares your deep intuitive understanding of people, emotions, and life in general. Don't settle for anything less,” Ventus pauses, looking up at Vanitas, who rolls his eyes in response. “Sounds like you’ve got some love life sorting out to do.”

Vanitas chooses to pretend he has no idea what Ventus is implying. “You know, for an A-level straight guy, you might just care way too much about the zodiac.”

Ventus just shrugs. “The stars don’t lie, Vani.”

Vanitas rolls his eyes again, picking up a rag from the stove and using it to dry off his hands. “The stars have no impact on people’s personalities. Here, let me try one. You’re a, what, Virgo?” He asks, as if he wasn’t already painfully aware of Ventus’s zodiac sign because he talks about it far more than a 19 year old boy probably should. Ventus nods, and Vanitas closes his eyes as though he’s listening to the stars that Ventus is so sure have any impact on their lives whatsoever. “The stars say you’re too invested in what the stars say. They also say you’re too stressed out and you need a nap.”

He opens his eyes and looks back at Ventus, who shrugs again. “I could use a nap.”

“Everyone could use a nap, those things are bogus. They take general statements that could relate to literally anyone and make you feel special, like they can see inside your soul. It’s bullshit.”

Ventus rolls his eyes, though Vanitas can tell he’s suppressing a smile. “You’re such a Scorpio.”

Vanitas tosses a plastic cup at the blonde’s head, who just narrowly manages to duck out of its way. Ventus laughs, and goes to say something else but is cut off by Vanitas’s phone ringing from a call from Sora.

“Hello?”

“Vanitas, you need to come to the hospital. Right now.”

* * *

Ventus insists on accompanying Vanitas to the hospital. Sora refused to tell him what was wrong on the phone, and Ventus, knowing Vanitas’s tendency to panic about everything, said he didn’t want him doing anything stupid on the way there.

He jumps out of the car, leaving Ventus to run after him in an attempt to catch up. Vanitas makes it to the counter but doesn’t have a chance to say anything before Sora’s meeting them at the counter, eyes red and nose running. He jumps into Vanitas’s arms, and Vanitas hugs him back as his brother cries into his arms.

“Sora, what happened?” Ventus asks, running his hand down Sora’s back as he cries, head buried in Vanitas’s shoulder. Vanitas silently thanks him, because he’s completely frozen.

Sora pulls himself out of Vanitas’s embrace apprehensively, wiping his nose and sniffling. “Something happened. To Xion.”

Vanitas’s heart drops to his feet. She’d went back to their Grandpa’s after a week of visiting him, and it’d been about a month since then. Sora leads them down the hallways to a room where Xion’s name was labelled outside. Ventus grabs his hand comfortingly as Vanitas slowly enters the room. Had the situation been different he probably would have thrown up from nerves for that reason and not his sister laying on a hospital bed, unconscious.

His breathing hitches as he reaches her, and Sora grabs his free arm and squeezes it. “She just collapsed this morning, I guess. Nobody was home. I found her an hour or so ago.”  
Vanitas can barely hear Sora talking over the ringing in his ears and the beeping of the heart monitor. He lets go of Ventus’s hand and takes a few steps towards her, his breathing short and ragged as he tries to hold back the tears threatening to spill over at the sight of her. “Do they know what happened?”

He has to pull his eyes away from her to look at Sora, who shakes his head and wipes his eyes. Ventus puts an arm around him, and Sora looks appreciative. Of course he is. Sora loves everyone. He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.

Vanitas looks back at Xion, brushing a piece of hair from her forehead. “They have no idea?”

“Well, when I told them about dad’s history they said it probably had something to do with that,” Sora says, closing his eyes, “premature lung failure or something. They said she’d have died had I not called-”

Sora stops talking as he breaks down again, and Vanitas rushes over to him, pulling him into another hug and holding him tightly as he shakes from tears. He can feel Ventus staring at him but he can’t bring himself to look anywhere but the roof in an attempt to hold back his tears for his brothers sake. They stand like that for what seems like forever, until a doctor comes back and asks them to leave the room for a few hours.

Vanitas wants to scream, curse him out, tell them to _figure out what’s wrong with her and fix it!,_ but he can’t find the words, not with Sora and Ventus watching him. They both needed him to be strong. Ventus wasn’t ready to see the side of Vanitas that he buried with his anger management classes all those years ago, and Sora would just be more distraught if he exploded on the man currently responsible for his sister’s life.

Sora’s friends Riku and Kairi show up shortly after and run up to his brother, both pulling him into a tight hug. Vanitas silently thanks them. He likes Riku and Kairi- Sora and Riku had a slight falling out when Riku and Kairi started dating because Sora’s had a crush on Kairi for as long as Vanitas can remember, and it caused radio silence between the friends for a while. That was the only time other than this that he’d seen Sora truly heartbroken. They made up after a while, and have been inseparable again ever since.

Vanitas looks over at them, meeting Riku’s gaze and nodding at the boy, who nods back. He pulls his attention away from his crying brother back to Ventus, who hadn’t said a word since entering Xion’s room. “Thanks. For coming.”

Ventus looks up at him, looking genuinely confused. “Of course. You’re my best friend.”

Vanitas feels selfish for being hurt by the word _friend._

He looks forward, at his sister’s name on the label at the entrance to the room, and takes a shaky breath. Ventus places a hand on his, and though he doesn’t look at him, he’s sure the blonde knows he’s thankful for it.

He reaches his other hand out, without looking, to take Sora’s. His brother grips his hand tight, and they stay like that until the doctor comes back out. “She’s stable for now. Where are your kids’ parents?” He asks, looking between Vanitas and Sora.

“Our mom’s dead, and our dad hasn’t contacted either of us in months,” Vanitas says, standing to talk to the doctor. “Sora and Xion live with our grandparents.”

“And they’re her legal guardians?” The doctor asks, and Vanitas shakes his head.

“No. But I don’t even know where our dad is, and honestly, I don’t care. It’s his fault she’s in there, right?” Vanitas demands, and the doctor looks like he doesn’t particularly want to answer. “Right?!”

“Vani,” Sora whispers, standing up and placing a hand on Vanitas’s arm. The doctor clears his throat.

“Your brother told me when he got here that your father had a history of narcotic and nicotine abuse, correct?” Vanitas nods, and the doctor continues. “Paired with the physical abuse you kids suffered, those are all contributions to early onset lung failure. I believe it has something to do with the secondhand smoke from your father smoking in the home, as your brother told me, paired with your sisters already weak lungs.”

“Xion had asthma as a kid, but we all thought she grew out of it,” Vanitas says, biting the inside of his cheek to keep the tears down. “She’s been better.”

The doctor shakes his head. “She probably just got more accustomed to it. That, and I believe some minor form of fetal alcohol or nicotine syndrome may have played some role in this.”

Vanitas’s heart sinks. He knew his mom wasn’t a saint, but he never would have pinned her to drinking while pregnant. He shakes his head, trying to force those thoughts away. “So what can we do?”

The doctor sighs, glancing between him and Sora. “Hope for a miracle. We’ll do the rest.”

* * *

Vanitas, hanging over the sink and breathing through his mouth to not induce vomiting again from the stench of his expelled liquor-filled insides, finds himself wondering how the fuck he let himself get to a point like this on a Tuesday night. He listens as someone approaches him, giving him a light pat on the back and pausing for a few moments before speaking.

“Are you okay?”

Vanitas knew as well as Hayner did that he wasn’t asking him about the vomiting, and Hayner knew as well as Vanitas that, no, he wasn’t okay, not even remotely close.

“I’m fine.”

Hayner steps back as Vanitas stands, wiping his mouth with his sleeve and sniffling. Vanitas avoids looking directly into Hayner’s concerned brown eyes and instead pretends like the dust collecting on top of the microwave is the most interesting thing he’s seen in a while. Hyaner sighs, and Vanitas still can’t bring himself to meet his eyes.

“Ventus is worried about you.”

Vanitas tries his best to hide the fact that Hayner’s statement makes him flinch. He shakes his head, closing his eyes in an attempt to stop the world from spinning around him. He hears Hayner sigh again, and he waits to open his eyes until he’s sure the brunette is gone. Vanitas drops to the ground, putting his head in his knees and sitting like that until he can’t bear his own thoughts anymore.

He pulls himself to his feet, walking towards the door. He grabs a coat off the rack and throws it on, ignoring Roxas calling after him as he closes the door behind him and walks off.

He walks for a while, eventually getting to a leaf-covered bridge a ways away from Roxas’s house. He leans over the edge, sighing, staring at the water below him at himself.

_I don’t even know who you are anymore._

He kicks a few rocks off the ground over the side in an attempt to rid the water of his face and looks up at the sky.

He doesn’t look up as he hears approaching footsteps, and doesn’t say a word as the person stands next to him and puts a hand on his shoulder. “You should come back.”

Vanitas exhales once, sharply, and looks away from the person next to him, who sighs.

“I’m serious.”

“Why did you follow me?”

He turns his head to meet his bright blue eyes, filled with sadness and concern. He looks perfect even when he’s worried, and Vanitas curses in his mind because even at his best, he’d never looked _that_ good. Never so put together. He had permanent bags under his eyes, his brown roots were always growing in, he was a mess of a person that looked completely pathetic in comparison.

The blonde sighs. “We all care about you, Vani. You can’t just throw everything away because-”

“Because my sister is gonna die? Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Vanitas, _I_ care about you.”

He has to look away at these words, staring back at the water below and thinking about how nice it would be to just fill his lungs with it and fade away himself. He shakes his head, closing his eyes and building a brick wall between him and the blonde boy next to him.

“Why are you always pushing me away?!”

Vanitas whips his head up to look him in the eyes. “Why do you even care?! We’re not even friends, are we? You just feel bad for me because of Hayner and Xion and you’ll probably _never_ care about me the same way I care about you. So stop telling me that you care and looking at me like I’m some stray cat you found on the side of the road! I don’t need you to fix me, Ventus!”

Ventus looks extremely taken aback by Vanitas’s outburst, but he stays. Vanitas can’t think of a single reason why.

“Of course we’re friends.”

Vanitas sighs, looking back at the water and suppressing every negative emotion in him so as to not let it all explode on Ventus. The hurt in his voice was clear, and it hurts Vanitas even more knowing that he’s hurting Ventus.

“Go home, Ven.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“I said go home!” He snarls, turning to tower over the smaller blonde boy. He looks scared, but he still stays.

“No!”

Vanitas takes a few heavy breaths before stepping back, staring at Ventus for a few moments before finally breaking.

He drops to the ground and pulls his knees into his chest, letting out all the shaking sobs he’d been holding in for the past week. Ventus sits next to him, running his hand along his back as he cries. Vanitas expels all of his emotions until his eyes run completely dry, pulling his head out of his knees and resting it on Ventus’s shoulder. He sighs, breathing shaky, before speaking. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Ven says, putting his hand on Vanitas’s and squeezing once. “You’ll be okay. I promise.”

* * *

Xion doesn’t last much longer after that.

Between juggling Sora’s self-deprecation, Ventus’s overbearing concern and Xion herself, Vanitas feels like he doesn’t even have room to breathe. Sora blames himself, Vanitas knows, because Sora keeps saying over and over again that had he been home, had he been there when it happened, he could have saved her. Vanitas tells him time and time again that nothing could have saved her except their parents not being as shitty as they were, but Sora won’t listen. Vanitas was always the pessimist of the family, Sora was the optimist, but now with Sora falling apart at the seams and nobody there to help him through it except Vanitas, he was finding it exceptionally hard to keep up the appearance of strength. He mentions this to Ven over a cup of 1a.m. coffee, Sora fast asleep with tear stained-cheeks on their couch, and the blonde boy sighs in response, shaking his head sadly and shooting his own glance at the sleeping boy on the couch. “Sora wouldn’t blame you for being sad, Vani.”

“I know that. I just… I want to be strong for him. I want to help him.”

“Maybe you should help yourself first. Sora’s strong, he’ll be okay eventually. You guys can lean on each other.”

Vanitas shakes his head. At that moment, Roxas walks down the stairs, clearly wearing Hayner’s sweatpants as they’re covered in stains that Roxas would never let happen to his own clothes. He approaches the table and leans against the edge, smiling sadly at Vanitas. “How are you doing, man?”

Vanitas shrugs. “About as well as someone who’s sister is on her deathbed would be doing.”

Roxas sighs, looking down at the table and running his finger along the grain. “I’m sorry, Vani. I wish there was something I could do.”

Vanitas shakes his head and, to his surprise, is pulled into Roxas’s hug. He lets it happen, though he notices the lack of butterflies in his stomach at the contact. He wonders if he’s maybe, finally, over Roxas. With a quick glance at Ventus, he finds it likely.

Roxas lets him go after a moment, holding onto each of his shoulders and sending him a comforting smile. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” he says, and Vanitas forces a smile with his nod in response. Roxas heads back upstairs with one final glance at Vanitas, who wills his forming tears away before looking back at Ventus.

Ven’s looking at him with the same smile as Roxas, though for some reason it has far more impact on Vanitas. The tears spill over, and Ventus is on his feet immediately, holding Vanitas close as he fights back against the tears falling from his eyes. He composes himself quickly with the help of Ventus running his hand along his back that always seems to make him feel better, and he pulls away before he can get too much snot on his friend’s shirt. He wipes his nose, and Ventus can’t even manage a smile anymore.

“I hate seeing you like this.”

Vanitas looks away. “I’m sorry.”

Ven shakes his head sadly. “I didn't mean it like that. I like seeing you happy. This sucks so much and it’s so fucking unfair and I just… I wish I could make it better. I wish I could help you.”

“Honestly, Ven, at this point you’re the _only_ thing helping me.”

Ventus’s eyes light up just a bit at this, his smile returning and Vanitas notices his eyes getting slightly glassy, though it’s gone in a split second and he wonders if he’d just imagined it. “Good. That’s good. Hey, what about if me and Roxas take you and Sora out for lunch tomorrow? Maybe see a movie? Infinity War is probably still playing.”

Vanitas wants nothing less than to be out in public, but Ventus looks so hopeful that he finds himself unable to argue. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Ventus says, smiling a bit bigger. “Okay,” he repeats, “it’s a date. Now get some sleep, you look horrible.”

His words lack any malice and Vanitas smiles up at him from his chair. Ventus clasps him once on the shoulder before following Roxas up the stairs, leaving Vanitas alone.

He sits there for a few more moments before sending one final glance at Sora, then getting up and doing the same.

* * *

Xion dies on a Friday night.

Vanitas is there, Ventus by his side, when the monitor goes flat.

Ventus holds him as he screams in the hospital hallway.

* * *

Her funeral passes by at 200 kilometers an hour. Vanitas barely holds himself together through it.

Ventus is there to hold his hand.

He’s grateful.


	2. Butterfly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here's the result of two weeks of writer's block. The quality is lacking. Also here's a playlist i made to listen to while you read!: https://8tracks.com/rorypond/i-was-in-love-with-you-then-too

Two weeks pass by faster than Vanitas can even comprehend.

Sora becomes increasingly distant from Vanitas, no matter how hard he tries to hold on. His brother starts visiting less, ignoring calls and texts, and worrying Vanitas even more by the day.

Vanitas leaves a voicemail on Sora’s phone begging him to call him back. He tries to make it seem like he isn’t crying, though he can’t stop his voice from cracking when he finishes the message off by saying, “please, Sora. I need you right now. I can’t lose you both.”

He hangs up as he hears a soft knock on his door, looking up to see Ventus poking his head in. “Hey, you okay?”

Vanitas tries to hide the single tear falling down his cheek and he nods, taking a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. I was thinking about going to see Sora in a bit.”

Ventus nods, looking around Vanitas’s mess of a room. He takes a breath, straightening the bottom of his shirt before speaking. “Need a ride?”

Ventus is perfectly aware that Vanitas owns his own car, and Vanitas takes a moment before nodding. “Sure.”

Vanitas gets up, following Ventus downstairs and towards the door. He shrugs his jacket on before stepping outside, trudging through snow towards Ventus’s car. He opens the door, getting inside and taking a shaky breath that condenses in front of him. He digs his hands into his pockets and waits for Ventus to join him. He does, starting the car and blasting the heat. “You’re gonna have to give me directions.”

Vanitas instructs him on how to get to his grandparents’ home, and Ventus starts up a slightly awkward conversation. Vanitas can tell he’s trying his best to take his mind off of Xion, and he can also tell Ventus has never been faced with a significant loss, because dear _God_ he’s terrible at it. “So… How’s the Roxas thing?”

As much as he doesn’t want to talk about that, he doesn’t want to sit in silence more. “Good. Good, I think… I think I’m good.”

“You’re… Over him?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I, uh, I think so,” Vanitas says, and Ventus nods slowly, gripping the steering wheel tighter than Vanitas has ever seen.

“Good. Good, I’m glad,” Ven says, and the two lapse into awkward silence again for a few minutes, until Ventus speaks up again. “Hey, uh, after I drop you off I was thinking maybe I could run to the store, get some ice cream or something, and we could throw on a marathon of The Office or something?”

Vanitas looks over at him, smiling just a bit. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds nice. I’d like that.”

Ven shoots him a quick glance with a smile before turning back to the road. “Alright. Cool. We’re here, do you want me to come back in, like, 2 hours?”

Vanitas nods. “Sure, sounds good.”

He gets out of the car an approaches the door nervously. He knocks a few times softly and stands there, stomach doing flips, until it opens. He jumps back and meets eyes with Sora.

Sora, who’s obviously raided Vanitas’s high school wardrobe storage because he’s in black jeans and a black long sleeve shirt, both far too big for him, and he clearly hasn’t been sleeping because his usually perfect hair is a mess and he’s got bags bigger than Vanitas’s under his eyes.

“Hi,” Sora says, voice raspy.

“Hey,” Vanitas responds nervously, forcing a small smile at the sight of his brother. He’d been hoping that there was a reasonable explanation to his brother all but cutting him off from his life and ignoring all his calls, but with every second he laid eyes on his brother, the less likely that seemed. “Can I come in?”

Sora doesn’t say anything, just steps to the side and gestures for Vanitas to enter. He does, walking towards the couch and leaning against the side of it. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” Sora mutters back, crossing his arms and looking down at the ground. “I didn’t know you were coming. 

Vanitas shrugs. “You never answer your phone anymore.”

“I kinda just want to be alone for a bit. I figured you would take the hint.”

Vanitas tries to pretend like Sora’s words weren’t shoving knives into his heart. He forces himself to shrug again. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m okay. I have soccer in half an hour so you should probably call someone to come get you, unless you want to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa.”

Vanitas shakes his head. “I came here to see you. I’m worried about you, Sora.”

Sora rolls his eyes. Another knife in Vanitas’s heart. “I just told you I’m fine. I’m dealing with it, I’m good.” At that moment someone honks in the driveway, and Sora checks the time. “That’s Kairi, we’re going for coffee before the game. I’ll see you later, Vani,” he says, picking up his bag by the door and slamming it behind him as he leaves.

Vanitas drops down on the couch, putting his face in his hands and letting out a shaky breath. _So much for wanting to be alone,_ Vanitas thinks to himself. He feels a few tears fall from his eyes, realizing he’s completely alone in the house, and takes the opportunity to fully break down while nobody is there to see him.

He’s already lost Xion, and now Sora’s halfway out the door, too.

_Everything’s falling apart._

* * *

He lies and tells Ventus that the visit was great. The blonde looks happy, and though Vanitas is breaking inside, this cheers him up.

He and Ventus sit on the couch covered in blankets, stuffing their faces with snacks and continuing from the last time they had a marathon of The Office. Jim and Pam are just finally getting together, and Vanitas catches Ventus looking at him a few times during the course of the episodes. “Something on my face?” He asks. Normally he wouldn’t be so bold, but Sora really threw him off and he just doesn’t want to deal with anything anymore.

Ventus stops chewing and looks over at him with slightly wide eyes. “No, uh… Just checking to make sure you’re okay.”

Vanitas laughs just a little. “I’m okay, Ven. Trust me, you’d know if I wasn’t.” Ven doesn’t look convinced, and Vanitas rolls his eyes lightheartedly. “Ven, I’m good.”

He nods, looking unconvinced, and turns his attention back to the living room T.V. Vanitas watches him for a moment, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips at whatever scene Vanitas can’t be bothered to pay attention to. He stares at Ventus until the blonde notices and stares back, redirecting his smile from the T.V. to Vanitas himself. Vanitas sends him a small smile back, and the two of them just sit there staring at each other for what seems like forever, until Ventus leans in just a little.

And then a little more.

And then his face is almost touching Vanitas’s and Vanitas’s heart is racing and it’s absolutely about to happen, and then Roxas walks in the door and Vanitas practically jumps off the couch in surprise and embarrassment, him and Ventus ending up on either side of the couch and both looking anywhere but each other.

“Hey, guys!” Roxas grins at them, plopping himself down on the couch between them, blissfully unaware of the awkwardness he’d just caused. “Ah man, this is the best season. Why’s the volume so low?”

Roxas turns up the volume on the T.V., nestling himself between Ventus and Vanitas, and Vanitas can only stare at the screen, doing his best to ignore the massive elephant in the room.

Roxas falls asleep after an episode or two, and Vanitas slowly gets up so as to not wake him, and walks to the kitchen, eyeing the half-full bottle of vodka on the counter and debating drinking the entirety of it before Ventus catches up to him, but the blonde is hot on his tail and he doesn’t get any farther than thinking about it.

“Hey,” Ven says as he makes it to the kitchen, making Vanitas jump and slam his head against the shelf above his head. “Well, that’s deja vu,” he jokes as Vanitas stands and rubs the back of his head.

“Yeah,” he laughs once, awkwardly, and the two of them just stand there looking at each other until Vanitas breaks the silence by laughing again. “Your brother has bad timing.”

Ven laughs, too. “Tell me about it. He walked in during my first time, you know. Pretty sure he’s still mentally scarred by that,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “I don’t think he even realized what was… Happening.”

Vanitas raises an eyebrow at him, and the next words out of his mouth surprise him just as much as they obviously surprise Ventus. “And what, exactly, was happening? Cause it seemed like you were about to kiss me, but the fact that you’re straight is making me feel like maybe you were just trying to get a better look at my eyes or something.” Ventus’s eyes go wide and he begins stuttering, and Vanitas finds himself incredibly entertained by how flustered he’d made him. “Ven, chill, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t- what?”

Vanitas sets down the can of Twisted Tea he’d rummaged out of the back of the fridge and shifts his weight to one leg. “What’s going on, man?”

Ventus sighs, looking at the ground. “I don’t know. Something about you, I guess?”

Vanitas laughs, looking up at the roof. “Because I’m hurt and you don’t know how else to help me?”

Ventus doesn’t answer right away, forcing Vanitas to look back at him. He shakes his head. “No, it’s not that. I just don’t know. It’s different. You’re different.”  
  
“Because I’m a guy.”

“Because you’re my best friend. I don’t give a fuck about what’s in your pants. I don’t want to ruin our friendship, because I really, _really_ care about you. More than anyone. I don’t want to lose you.”

Vanitas wasn’t expecting this. “Guess I should’ve trusted my gut with those decorative pillows,” he says, mostly to himself, but Ven raises an eyebrow anyway. “But you let me think you were fully straight, this whole goddamn time-”

“I didn’t want to ruin anything,” Ventus repeats, cutting him off. “And I wasn’t sure if you were still hung up on Roxas, and then Xion, and the timing just never felt right, I guess.”

Vanitas tries to fight off the pang of sadness that hits him at the mention of his sister. He shakes his head, squeezing his eyes closed. “So, what happens now, then? Does Roxas know?”

“Does he know about you?” Ventus asks, and Vanitas shakes his head. “I don’t know, do you want him to know?”

“Would he be weird about it?”

“He’s Roxas. He’s weird about everything.”

“So, what, we keep it a secret for a while?”

Ventus shrugs. “If that’s what you want.”

Vanitas swallows once, knowing the next thing to leave his mouth is going to be cringey, sappy, corny, and every other variation of the word, but he says it anyway.

“I want you.”

And Ventus kisses him.

 

* * *

 

Sora continues being distant for the next few weeks, and an increasingly worried Vanitas finds himself spiraling, the only thing keeping him tethered to the world at that point being Ventus.

Ventus, who’d insisted that the timing was never right, had somehow managed to time himself perfectly to when Vanitas needed him most. Vanitas fell for him fast and hard, letting all the feelings towards him he’d been bottling up over the past few months completely spill over now that he was allowing himself to accept them. He was happy with Ventus, despite being miserable about everything else.

Vanitas gets a worrying call one snowy night. It’s a number he doesn’t recognize, and when he answers, he hears Riku’s frantic voice on the other line.

“Vanitas. I need your help.”

 

* * *

 

Vanitas makes it to where Riku asked him to meet him about 20 minutes after they’d hung up. Riku’s there, sitting on the hood of his car, and hops off when he sees Vanitas pull up. Vanitas parks next to him, and Riku starts talking before Vanitas has even closed his car door behind him.

“Sora left my place a little while ago. I tried to stop him, but he drove off before I could. We were drinking, he told me about him and Kairi and I started screaming at him and he told me I was an asshole and he just… Left. He was pulling out of my driveway before I even made it to the door. He isn’t answering any of his calls. I’m not sure where he’s going, but he’d had enough to drink that I’m certain he isn’t going to make it there.”

Vanitas’s heart drops into the ground. “Call the police. I’ll drive.”

 

* * *

 

They spend two hours looking for him, and Vanitas receives a call at 3AM from the local hospital. Vanitas pulls a U-turn and they speed off. They make it there in about 20 minutes, Vanitas heading straight into the emergency wing before quickly realizing he has no idea where he’s going.

Riku, who had gone to the front desk, runs past him, grabbing his arm on the way by and pulling him along with him. The two of them make it to a room a hallway away from Xion’s old one with Sora’s name on the label by the door. Vanitas feels like someone had punched him directly in the gut.

He takes a few nervous steps in, relief overcoming every other emotion as he sees Sora, sitting up in the bed, eating a sandwich. He resists the urge to both hug him and strangle him as he stands there, and Sora stares at him guiltily. “Hey.”

“Hi." 

There’s an awkward silence before Riku breaks it. “Sora, are you okay?”  
  
“What do you care?” Sora mutters, looking down at his lap. Riku sighs, taking a step to stand at the edge of the bed.

“I care because you’re my friend. I’m pretty fucking pissed off at you right now, for Kairi and for almost killing yourself, but I’m just glad you’re alive.”

Sora doesn’t respond. Riku sighs after a long silence, then pushes himself off the edge of the bed to stand and walk out of the room. Vanitas follows him, desperate for answers.

“Riku, what happened before he left?”

Riku sighs, running a hand through his hair. “He slept with Kairi,” he says, looking down at the ground. “I knew… I knew there was something going on, but I trusted him. I didn’t think anything would ever actually happen. And then Xion died, and he started spiraling, and she was the only one he’d talk to, and he just told me before he left that it happened a few days ago. I lost it on him, I should have understood that he’s hurting and he’s not himself right now but… I love her, and it hurt.”

“Just because he’s hurting doesn’t give him the right to hurt you,” Vanitas says, putting his hand on Riku’s shoulder. “What matters is he’s okay, but I think you and I are gonna have to have a long chat with him once he’s out of here. For now, do you think you can focus on helping him recover?”

Riku sighs, but nods. “Yeah. I can do that.”

 

* * *

 

Sora makes a slow recovery.

He broke his leg in the crash, and at first he stays at their grandparents’, though he shows up at Vanitas’s one night, keys in hand and bag over his shoulder, and Vanitas sighs. “You shouldn’t be driving with a broken leg.”

Sora shrugs in response. “Grandpa’s still mad at me for damaging the car. Can I stay here?”

“Well, that depends. Are you gonna talk to me?”

Sora rolls his eyes. “Whatever, Vani. Can I come in?”

Vanitas steps aside, and Sora walks into the house. He drops his bags beside the couch, tosses his keys on the coffee table, and drops onto the couch. “Can we order Chinese?”

Ventus walks down the stairs at that moment. “Hey ba- oh, hey… Sora,” he says, sending a confused glance at Vanitas, who shrugs as Sora picks up the Xbox remote and starts up Call of Duty. Ventus walks over to Vanitas until he’s out of Sora’s eyesight, and gestures to the kitchen. Vanitas follows him until both of them are far enough away from Sora for him to not hear them. “I thought you guys weren’t in a good spot.”

Vanitas sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what’s going on with him. That’s not the Sora I know. He’s acting like… Like me, at his age.”

Ventus raises his eyebrows at him. “What do you mean?”

“I used to have really bad anger issues. I was in management classes for years. Right around when our mom died, I started behaving pretty much just like he is now. I got a fake I.D. and started frequenting every downtown bar, got this tattoo,” he says, rolling up the sleeve of his flannel shirt to show Ventus the tattoo on his arm of a strange heart shaped symbol. “I was awful.”

“And how’d you get better?”

Vanitas shrugs, rolling his sleeve back down his arm. “I just came to terms with it, I guess. A lot of it was with Sora and Xion’s help.”

“Well, there you go, then.”

Vanitas takes a moment before nodding. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m glad he’s here. At least now I can try to help him.”

Ventus puts a hand on either one of Vanitas’s shoulders. “You will help him. I know you can. Because you’re amazing.”

“I’m not-”

“Vani. You’re incredible.”

Ventus kisses him once, quickly, and the two of them return to the living room. “Hey Sora, mind if I hop in?” Ventus asks, picking up one of the controllers. Sora shrugs.

“Sure.”

Ventus sits down on the couch and enters the game. Vanitas watches as the two of them play for a bit before heading upstairs.

He comes back down an hour or so later when Ventus never joins him. He sits at the top of the stairs and watches as Sora and Ventus play, both laughing and nudging each other and Vanitas smiles at the sight. The two most important people in his life, getting along. 

He watches them for a bit until Ventus notices him and smiles. “Vani, come here! Play winner!”

“Yeah, which’ll be me,” Sora laughs, and Ventus punches him lightly in the arm.

“In your dreams, kid." 

“Always,” Sora responds, and Vanitas walks down the stairs to Sora starting up another round. He leans over the back of the couch and watches as Sora and Ventus laugh, and he feels genuinely happy, which doesn’t happen often anymore.

Sora kicks Ven’s ass, but Vanitas is so excited about Sora and Ventus getting along so well that he can’t bring himself to take a controller from either of them. He ends up sitting between them on the couch, hand on Ven’s thigh under the blanket as he plays, and Ven smirks over at him between matches.

Sora drifts asleep within a few hours and Vanitas takes the opportunity to bring Ventus upstairs.

He’s got his shirt off pretty much before the door even closes, tearing Ven’s off a second later, and he’s sliding the blonde boy’s pants down his waist when someone knocks on the door.

Vanitas shoves Ven behind it quickly, Ven nearly falling over at the sudden action, and Vanitas opens the door, poking his head out. “Yes?”

Roxas raises an eyebrow at him. “Is Ven in here? We were gonna go to the store-”

“Haven’t seen him,” Vanitas says, cutting him off.

“Are you okay? I thought I heard someone in here.”

“Yeah, I was just, uh…” he trails off, looking around his room, “just reading some playboys. Love those bunnies, you know?”

Roxas makes a face and nods slowly. “Right, gotcha. Well, if you see Ven, tell him I went alone and to text me if he needs anything.”  
  
“Sounds good,” Vanitas says, closing the door before Roxas can even respond.

Ventus glares at him.

“What?”

“Playboy?”

He shrugs. “Roxas doesn’t know I’m gay.”

Ven just rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”

“Are you-”

Ventus cuts him off by throwing him down onto the bed and kissing his way down his chest to the top of his pants, sloppily unbuckling them and pulling them off as fast as he can.

 

* * *

 

Vanitas finds that Ventus fits him like a glove.

In the least possessive way possible, Ventus was a perfect fit for Vanitas. He finds himself as happy as he’s ever been, even though nobody except the two of them know about it.

They play “best friends” very well for two people who fuck almost 7 times a week. The sex is the best Vanitas has ever had, and he wonders if maybe the secret to good sex is actually wanting to be having sex with the person you’re having sex with. And, oh man, does he love having sex with Ventus.

Despite the fun they have, it often gets undercut by unwanted visitors. Usually it’s Roxas, a few times it’s Hayner, and every once in a while Sora will show up out of nowhere and invite himself into Vanitas’s room. Ventus has ended up completely naked in Vanitas’s closet for over an hour before. He was less than pleased, to put it lightly, that Vanitas made no effort for a decent while to try and get Sora to go literally anywhere long enough for Ventus to run back to his own room. Vanitas thought it was god damn hilarious at the fact that he could all but _feel_ Ventus’s anger when Vanitas suggested he and Sora watch Fanny and Alexander.

Vanitas eventually ends up sending Sora downstairs to make popcorn after deciding on watching a significantly shorter movie, setting his own challenge at finishing Ventus off and getting him fully dressed and into his own room in the time it takes Sora to make, butter and season the popcorn.

He ultimately fails, and Sora walks in with a rather confused look as Ventus zips up his pants and Vanitas wipes saliva from around his mouth. “Did I miss something?”

“Nah, I just came in to borrow Vanitas’s Playboys,” Ventus says, and Vanitas backhands him in the gut because he just _will not_ let that go. He digs around in the bottom of Vanitas’s closet for a moment before pulling out the large stack of playboys that Ven had bought from eBay as a joke and Vanitas had hid there in hopes of never seeing again. Ventus waves them with a small smile and he does a very good job at looking awkward for someone who Vanitas is sure is absolutely _losing it_ inside.

Vanitas makes a mental note to blue ball him next time.

 

* * *

 

Sneaking around with Ventus turns out to be a lot more of a pain in the ass than Vanitas had originally thought it would be.

Though it’s also equally as fun, Vanitas often finds himself wishing he could just balls up and tell people.

Half the problem, he finds, is that neither Roxas nor Hayner know about his sexuality, and that Sora is still struggling a lot with Xion’s death, and the fact that Kairi apparently hadn’t spoken to him since the night of his crash. Riku, he says, will at least return the texts Sora sends, though he won’t reach out first. Vanitas is grateful his brother is at least talking to him, though he wishes it wasn’t because his best friends won’t.

Nonetheless, Sora’s only beginning to come to terms with Xion’s death, though he and Vanitas have cried over her quite a few times. Having Sora around was great, for a while, until he nearly catches Vanitas and Ventus one time too many and Ventus apparently decides he’s nearly had enough.

Vanitas is sitting on his bed, playing a game on his phone with Ventus laying in his lap fumbling with Vanitas’s black t-shirt. “Do you think we should just tell Sora and Roxas about us?”

Vanitas dies in his game at Ventus’s question. “What?”

“We’ve been sneaking around for, what, five months now? Don’t you think it’s time to tell at least our brothers? Specifically mine who literally lives in the same house as us?”

Vanitas pauses for a moment before answering, staring down at his phone and refusing to meet Ven’s blue eyes. “I don’t know, Ven.”

“Why? What’s stopping us?”

Vanitas refuses to say the word _Roxas_ despite that being the only thing on his mind. He knows how Ven would take it, because he knows Ven is still slightly insecure about dating someone who’s been in love with his twin brother for two years, and he understands. It’s not like that, though. Just because he never got closure and he still can’t be around Roxas without his heart speeding up a little doesn’t mean he’s not completely over him, and Ventus has no reason to worry about it.

“Vani?”

Vanitas jumps a little, realizing he still hasn’t answered the question.

“Sorry. I’m sorry, Ven. You know I want to. I just... Need time.”

Ven nods, but doesn’t say anything, and Vanitas curses himself for being incapable of feeling a single human emotion.

Vanitas finds himself at dinner with Ventus later on that same week, discussing whether or not to just out themselves and make their lives significantly easier in the process. Vanitas sighs, looking up at the waiter who approaches them. “Anything I can get for the lovely couple?” The girl asks after taking their orders and Vanitas quickly cuts Ven off before the blonde can answer.

“No, uh, we’re just friends,” he says, and the waiter looks a small bit awkward as she nods and leaves them alone.

“Why are you so adamant about keeping everything under wraps like this?” Ventus demands, and Vanitas can’t even bring himself to look at him. “Vanitas, look at me. That girl didn’t even know us. Why does it matter if she knows we’re together? Why does it matter if anyone knows we’re together?”

Vanitas just shrugs, mentally cursing himself again for not being able to say anything.

Ventus’s voice goes quiet at his next words. “Are you ashamed of me?”

Ven’s question and the sudden sad tone taking on his voice is enough to snap Vanitas out of his mutism. “What? Ven, no, absolutely not. You’re amazing, you’re the most amazing person I know, I could never be ashamed of you.”

“Then what is it?” Ven demands, stabbing Vanitas’s heart by the shaking of his voice and Vanitas can tell he’s struggling to hold it together in the fancy restaurant they’re sitting in the middle of. “Because I don’t get it. I love you, Vani, and I’m proud of that, but it feels like you don’t even want to be with me when anyone else is around.”

Vanitas’s heart skips a beat at the words _i love you._ Neither of them had never said that before. He curses himself out in his head for not being able to muster the words _I love you too,_ because it’s the only thing he’s thinking, his brain is screaming it at him and he knows had they been alone he’d be able to say it back without a second thought, but they’re sitting in a crowded fancy restaurant and Ventus is staring at him with glassy blue eyes and Vanitas hates himself because this is _exactly_ what Ventus is talking about.

“Whatever. Just proves my point,” Ven mutters, standing up and walking away before Vanitas can even get a word out to stop him.

 

* * *

 

Vanitas takes a few hours before he works up the courage to go home.

He sets sets the to-go container of Ventus’s order on the counter along with a note that says _I’m sorry_ before heading up the stairs to bed.

“What happened tonight?”

Vanitas jumps at the voice speaking behind him and whips around to see Roxas sitting on the couch behind him. “Jesus, I didn’t even see you there.”

Roxas gets to his feet, and as he gets closer Vanitas can see the anger on his face. “Ventus came home in an Uber crying. He wouldn’t even talk to me. What happened?” Vanitas just shrugs, and Roxas narrows his eyes at him, causing him to awkwardly shuffle his feet under the blonde’s angry gaze. “Vanitas, I know you guys were out tonight. And based on that,” he says, nodding in the direction of Vanitas’s _I’m sorry_ note on the counter, “I feel like I’m not wrong in assuming that it had something to do with you?”

 _Fuck,_ Vanitas thinks to himself, sighing once, heavily, before bringing his eyes up to meet Roxas’s. He has so many thoughts running through his head and it apparently takes him too long to decide on which one to speak out loud because Roxas sighs, the anger fading from his face just a little. “You guys are together, aren’t you?”

Vanitas’s heart drops through the ground. “What?”

Roxas rolls his eyes, though it’s not aggressive. “You can’t fool a gaydar, Vani. And you can’t fool twin telepathy.”

“That’s not a real thing,” Vanitas mutters, but doesn’t find himself denying the accusation.

“So you’re together, then.”

Vanitas takes a few moments to answer.

“Yes.”

Roxas takes a second before nodding. “How’d that happen? Last I knew you were two straight guys. 

“Seems like that gaydar needs some polishing, then,” Vanitas remarks, and Roxas glares at him. “I don’t know, we just got close. It’s hard to explain. Kind of a long story, you know?”

Roxas looks over at the clock which reads 12:01a.m. “Looks like we’ve got time.”

And so Vanitas tells him.

He tells him about how he’d been in love with Roxas since their first year of University, he tells him about how he confessed his love to Ventus thinking he was Roxas, and how they’d become best friends over a few short months. He tells him about how Ventus was the main source of comfort after Xion’s sudden death and Sora’s rebellion, how it was a slow burn into Vanitas falling completely in love with Ventus and being terrified of it because of how long he’d been unrequitedly in love with Roxas and how he was scared he only loved Ventus because he loved Roxas first. It was the first time he admitted it, not only to himself but to someone else. It felt good, but now that it’s out there, he knows he can’t take it back.

Roxas just stares at him for a moment. He hadn’t spoken a word throughout Vanitas’s entire rambling, and he takes a moment before he finally does. “You liked me?”

Vanitas sighs. “I loved you. I was in love with you, Roxas, and it sucked so bad. None of my relationships since I’ve met you have worked out because I look for you in every single person I meet. It fucking sucks, but that’s just it; I loved you, and I don’t anymore. I love Ven.”

Roxas takes a moment before he nods. “I’m sorry.”

Vanitas laughs, once, and he doesn’t mean for it to be harsh, but it is. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Trust me, I did it to myself. But man, I’ve finally, _finally_ found someone I actually _want_ to be with and I’m so scared it’s just because he looks like you.”

“But you love him?”

Vanitas nods. Once. Instantly. He doesn’t even have to think about it.

“I do." 

“So tell him.”

 _Seems like an easy solution._ “That doesn’t fix anything, though, does it?”

“Because of me?”

“Because of everything. Because I haven’t gotten closure on anything. Just tell me something. Did you… Did you ever love me back?”

Roxas seems fond of pauses, Vanitas finds.

“I did. For a while. But then I met Hayner.”

Vanitas nods, and for some reason at Roxas’s words, he feels the mental brick wall around his brain topple. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

Roxas doesn’t need to tell Vanitas what he needs to do next. He gets up and walks to the stairs, stopping before starting upstairs. “Hey, Roxas?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

He looks over his shoulder to see Roxas nodding, and takes the stairs two at a time on the way up.

He makes it to Ventus’s bedroom door with a newfound confidence, and knocks. It takes a second before he hears any movement, but in a few seconds the door opens and Vanitas meets eyes with Ventus.

“Hey.”

Ven just glares at him, and Vanitas’s heart sinks as he sees how red and puffy the blonde’s eyes are. He’d been crying. Hard, by the looks of him. Vanitas’s smile fades a little, and he means to say something, anything, but doesn’t get the chance.

“Fuck off.”

And the door slams in his face.

Vanitas stands there for a moment, shocked, before his brain processes what’s happened. He knocks a few times, calling out for Ven to let him and and _just talk to me, please!_

“I don’t want to talk to you, Vanitas! I don’t even want to see you! Get away from me!” He hears Ven call through the door, and he sighs, feeling tears forming in his own eyes.

“Ven, _please._ ”

He gets no response, and eventually turns away from the door.

He walks back down the stairs, his heart burning a hole in his chest, as he sees Roxas still on the couch.

“What happened?” Vanitas doesn’t answer the question, and Roxas seems to understand. “Wanna get shitfaced?”

He nods.

The two of them take a full bottle of cheap vodka off the liquor shelf and head to the nearest back alley club on foot.

They make it there at around 12:45, Vanitas already being completely obliterated by the time they get there and Roxas not being far behind. The empty vodka bottle was tossed behind the closest Denny’s on the way to the club, and the two of them find themselves probably towards the upper end of the drunkest people there.

Vanitas is smacked in the face by his nearly-forgotten bisexuality when he sees a girl sitting at the bar with, as he says to Roxas, _the fattest ass_ he’s ever seen. Roxas stops his dancing at Vanitas’s words to give Vanitas a look of confusion. “Did you guys break up? I thought you’re just fighting,” he yells over the music.

Vanitas shrugs, rolling his eyes and letting his frustration come to light. “Hell if I know. Seemed pretty break-upy to me.”

Roxas just blinks at him. “So you’re just gonna go back to bringing random chicks home from the club every weekend? You don’t even know if he wants to break up.”

“I wasn’t-”

“No, Vanitas, I’m not gonna let you do that to him.”

Vanitas just stares at him for a moment, his outburst seeming completely out of character for the Roxas he’s known for the past 2 years. “Are you okay?”

Roxas just sighs, shaking his head. “Me and Hayner… I don’t even know what’s going on.”

Vanitas is taken aback by this. “You guys? You’re perfect for each other, what do you mean? 

“He’s been texting some guy, Seifer, for a few weeks now. He won’t let me see his phone, which he’s _never_ had an issue with before, and half the time he won’t even tell me where he is. We literally _live_ together and I never even know what he’s doing. Long nights at work, coming home smelling like weed, you know. I confronted him about it the other night and he lost it, but he didn’t deny anything, and he hasn’t spoken to me since. I haven’t seen him in two nights. He hasn’t come home.”

“Fuck, man. I’m sorry, I had no idea.” He’d been so caught up in his own drama that he didn’t even notice Hayner’s absence.

Roxas just shrugs. “You’ve had your own stuff going on, I get it. It’s all good. But I’m pretty sure he’s staying with Seifer, and he isn’t answering my calls, and I don’t know. It seems pretty break-upy to me.”

Vanitas cracks a small, reassuring smile at Roxas’s words. “Come on, I’ll buy you some shots.”

They each take three shots of “the cheapest whiskey they have,” and by that point Vanitas doesn’t even really realize what’s happening around him. Him and Roxas are just having a _blast_ , with every other shot a cheers to “shitty fuckin’ boyfriends,” and though Vanitas’s heart feels like it’s going to burn out of his throat because every shot he takes reminds him of drunken nights with Ventus talking about the stars, he’s having fun.

So much fun, he finds, that he doesn’t even notice Roxas getting a little closer with each song until the blonde boy is all but grinding on him, and Vanitas knows deep down that he should just back away, but he’s drunk and Ventus won’t talk to him and he’s so God damn _mad_ at himself and Ven and everything that he just can’t find a single fuck inside of him to give. So he lets it happen, all but encourages it, until he and Roxas are pressed together, face to face, and he can feel Roxas’s breath on his neck.

He feels his phone ring in his pocket, and he doesn’t step away.

He feels Roxas’s hands on his hips, and he doesn’t step away.

He feels his heart racing, and he doesn’t step away.

Roxas is a step shorter than him, but not much. He’s tall enough that he doesn’t have to stand on his toes to lean in to kiss him, he’s tall enough that he can run his hands through Vanitas’s hair when he does.

They kiss, and Vanitas’s heart feels like it’s going to burst.

They kiss, and he loves it. He loves kissing Ven, he always has.

Ventus is something special. Kissing him is like everything Vanitas has ever, _ever_ wanted in someone, and it’d been so long since he’d actually fallen in love with someone the way he’s in love with Ventus. He wonders if he’s ever loved anyone this way before.

And his heart drops when his drunken brain remembers that _this isn’t Ventus._

And he pulls away. Fast. Fast enough that Roxas nearly falls over, and Vanitas’s eyes are blurred enough to not be able to tell the difference between the two but he know it’s Roxas and he knows that he’s fucked up.

“I’m sorry, you’re just… You’re not him.”

The two of them just stare at each other until Vanitas feels painfully sober. He can’t bring himself to say another word, and Roxas looks like he’s on the verge of a full breakdown. “Fuck, Vanitas, I am so sorry.”

“It’s… It’s okay. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” Vanitas says, though it comes off in the volume of a whisper compared to the music and the ringing in his ears. “We should be getting back.”

Roxas nods, and they set out back to their house.

Vanitas checks his phone on the way out, remembering feeling it go off, and his heart drops even further when he reads the message to go along with the missed call.

_I’m sorry. Can we talk?_

He nearly drops his phone out of his hand as he reads the message, but he manages to steady his hands enough to type out a response.

_I’m sorry, too. I’m on my way home now._

Ventus answers almost immediately.

_Okay, I’ll be up._

He slides his phone into his pocket, feeling his heart pick up it’s pace with every step he takes towards their home. Roxas doesn’t say a word, and Vanitas knows they have to talk about it.

“Ventus wants to talk.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Good, I think. He apologized.”

“That’s good.”

“Roxas… We have to tell him.”

Roxas stops walking, but he doesn’t look at Vanitas. He hesitates before speaking. “I know.”

“I’ll do it, I’ll tell him I initiated it, I’d rather him be mad at me-”

“But you didn’t initiate it. I did. Because I’m mad at Hayner and I can’t handle being alone and-”

“Then I’ll tell him that, and I’ll tell him that you were drunk, and you’re hurting, and-”

“I’ll tell him. It’ll be easier coming from me.”

Vanitas stares at him for a moment. “Thank you.”

Roxas nods. “Just go hide out in your room when we get back, I’ll explain everything.”

And that’s what he does. They get in the door and Roxas immediately goes upstairs to Ven’s room, and by the way he walks up the stairs, Vanitas can tell he’s still drunk. He follows him up only after he hears Ventus’s door close, and closes his own bedroom door behind him.

It’s a long half hour before he hears a soft knock on his door. He jumps, heart racing, and opens it to see Ventus standing there, eyes looking freshly red and puffy, wearing one of Vanitas’s own sweaters. “Ven.”

“You made out with my brother?” Ven demands, and Vanitas’s heart sinks. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but he was hoping Ventus would understand. Though, seeing the state he’s in now, Vanitas realizes that was the dumbest thing he could have thought. Of course he’d be mad, they were just fighting not four hours ago about how Ventus thought Vanitas was ashamed to be with him, only to find out he’d gone and made out with his twin brother at a club.

“Ven, I’m sorry-” Vanitas starts, but he’s cut off by Ventus giving him the angriest look he’s ever seen.

“Fuck you and your sorries. I don’t want to hear it.”

“Then why are you here?” Vanitas asks, softly, but he knows deep down that he already knows the answer.

“Because we’re done. And I wanted to make that very clear to you.”

Vanitas’s heart drops into his feet. “Ven, no-”

“Save it, Vanitas. I don’t want to fucking hear it.”

Ventus turns to walk away, and Vanitas lets a tear fall from his cheek as he watches him walk down the hall, slamming the door behind him, and he hears the lock click.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t see Ventus for a few days after that.

He only hangs around the house when he sees Ventus’s car absent from the driveway, but he checks out the window every morning just to make sure. He needs space, Vanitas knows that, but every morning when he wakes up and sees the gray Volkswagen in the driveway and slowly packs his necessities into a duffel bag to bring to his Grandparents’ house, his heart breaks just a little more.

He sighs as he walks past Ven’s car to his own, throwing his bag into the backseat and taking one longing look into Ven’s upstairs window before starting his car and driving away.

He makes it to his Grandparents’ house slowly, knocking on the door lightly when he gets there. Sora opens it with a small smile. “Hey, Vani.”

Vanitas takes all his energy to muster a smile back. “Hey, Sora.”

Sora steps aside to let him in, closing the door behind him. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to visit,” he says, trying to stay as cryptic as possible because Sora doesn’t know about him and Ven, Sora doesn’t even know about Vanitas’s sexuality and it’s not something he needs to get into at that moment.

Sora nods, following Vanitas into the kitchen. “Are you alright?”

Vanitas takes a moment before nodding. “Yeah, I’m fine. I was thinking I should probably come see you, and Grandpa. I, uh… I wanted to see Xion’s room. It’s been a while since she’s been gone, and I haven’t worked up the nerve to see it yet.”

Sora pauses for a moment, then gives Vanitas a small smile. “It’s still the same.”

Vanitas nods. “I hoped so. Will you come with me?”

Sora smiles a little bigger, though there’s sadness behind it. “Of course.”

They head upstairs, towards the closed door at the end of the hallway with Xion’s name on the door. Vanitas sighs before working up the courage to open the door. Sora stands behind him, entering the room a little more confidently than Vanitas does, and he can tell Sora’s been in the room before 

He feels a certain empty sadness as he looks around the room. Her walls are a pale pastel blue, her favorite colour, and her bed hasn’t been made. He takes a seat on it, looking around the room and letting a single tear fall down his cheek. He sniffs, and Sora sits next to him, giving him a tight hug.

“I miss her.”

Vanitas sighs at Sora’s words, a few more tears falling from his eyes until he works up enough energy to hug Sora back. “Me too.”

They sit like that, Vanitas sniffling and Sora slightly shaking and Vanitas can tell he’s holding in tears, until Vanitas can’t handle being in the room anymore, and gets up to leave.

Sora follows after him, closing the door behind them and shuffling down the stairs in an attempt to catch up. “Can you believe it’s been almost seven months?”

The answer is no, it’s felt like a week to Vanitas, who still thinks about Xion every single day despite her dying over half a year ago. Vanitas shakes his head, though he can’t formulate an answer. He begins rummaging through the fridge, pulling out the ingredients to make a sandwich and putting them down on the counter. Sora sits on the other side, watching Vanitas with a certain intent that he can’t quite place and his best to ignore.

Sora takes a moment before breaking their silence. “I’m sorry.”

Vanitas looks up quickly. “For what?”

“For the way I acted after Xion died. I was an asshole to you, I left you to go through everything alone. I’m sorry.”

Vanitas doesn’t quite know how to respond, and he ends up just shaking his head. “It’s okay, Sora. Everyone deals with things their own way.”

“But you didn’t deserve that. I crashed a fucking car, Vani. On purpose. Who does that? I don’t think me and Riku are even friends anymore, Kairi hasn’t spoken to me in months, I tried to off myself a month after our sister died and I let you deal with all of it by yourself.”

Vanitas freezes in place. “What did you just say?”

Sora’s eyes widen, as if he hadn’t even realized what he’d admitted to his brother. “Nothing.”

“Sora, you just said you tried to kill yourself.”

Sora shakes his head. “I didn’t-”

“No, Sora, you can’t take that back. Why didn’t you tell me?!”

Sora looks scared. Vanitas isn’t angry, he’s heartbroken, but he can’t express human emotions without coming off as though he’s about to kill a person, and Sora jumps at his sudden raise of voice. “It wasn’t that serious." 

“You tried to _kill yourself,_ Sora! Suicide! That’s pretty fucking serious!” He can see Sora’s eyes getting glassy, and his brother pulls his arms into his chest as if to hide them, and Vanitas feels even worse. “Is that why you were pushing me away? Because you were trying to die?”

Sora just shrugs. “I didn't want you to be sad if I did.”

“Sora,” Vanitas whispers, and a single tear falling down Sora’s cheek is enough to break Vanitas out of his extreme emotional breakdown. He all but runs around the corner, pulling his brother into a tight hug. Sora shakes a bit again, and what’s left of Vanitas’s heart breaks into more pieces than he cares to count. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

Sora sniffs, pulling himself out of Vanitas’s hug and wiping his nose with his arm. Vanitas notices a few small scars but he ignores it for the time being. “It’s kind of embarrassing. After Xion, I started losing it, you know? The three of us were always so close, Vani. Then you moved out, and we lost her, and I just felt like everything was gone. All I felt like I had was Riku and Kairi, and then some stuff happened with Kairi and me, and Riku got _so_ mad at me, and I just decided that night to do it. I’m sorry, I should have called you, I should have asked for help. I was just so embarrassed, and I’m sorry, Vani.”

“Don’t apologize,” Vanitas whispers, managing a small smile, though it takes all of his effort to do so. “Do you… Still feel that way?”  
  
Sora shrugs. “Grandpa said I should see a therapist after the accident, because he just thought it was me acting out. I’ve been seeing someone since then, they put me on meds. That’s been helping, I think.”

Vanitas nods, thinking about himself at Sora’s age. “I went through the same thing a few years ago. But, Sora, after everything with Xion, I can’t be more glad I didn’t. I’d never want to put you through anything like this on purpose. It gets better, I promise. And maybe… Maybe it’ll get worse again, and then it’ll get better. I love you, kid. Don’t do that shit, okay? Trust me, it’s not worth it." 

Sora tears up again, and he jumps off his seat to hug Vanitas. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles into his shirt, and Vanitas sighs before hugging him back.

“I know. It’s okay.”

 

* * *

 

Sora and Vanitas wind up ordering a pizza, opening one of their Grandpa’s older bottle of scotch and having a long talk. Vanitas opens up about his past, for the first time ever, to Sora. They discuss low points, and Vanitas finds that he’d somehow become an inspiration of sorts to his younger brother. Or maybe he always was, and he’d just never noticed it.

They’re both pretty drunk by the time they finish the pizza, both of them discussing childhood memories and talking about everything from their father leaving to their mother dying to their Grandparents essentially letting them raise themselves. They laugh, Sora cries a bit more, and Vanitas wonders how Xion was the least emotional out of the three of them.

“Hey, Sora, can I tell you something? Since I’m drunk and you’re drunk and I don’t wanna try and do it when I’m sober?”

Sora downs a shot, makes a face, and nods his head. “Yeah, man. Of course.”

“I’m gay.”

Sora pauses for a moment, furrowing his eyebrows for a moment and Vanitas’s heart starts pounding a little. It takes a moment for Sora to respond. When he does, though, he smiles.

“Okay. You gonna eat the last slice?”

Vanitas pauses, before breaking into a grin himself, handing Sora the last slice of pizza.

 

* * *

 

He returns home the next morning to find Ventus’s car gone from the driveway. He’s slightly relieved, though when he walks in the door and meet’s Hayner’s eyes on his way out, he wonders exactly what he’s gotten himself into returning at that exact moment.

Hayner doesn’t say a word to him, just shoves his hands in his pockets and walks out the door. Vanitas watches him leave, noticing a few boxes in the back of the brunette’s car, and he closes the door behind him and heads up to Roxas’s room.

He finds Roxas with his door slightly open and a grinder in his hand, and Vanitas knocks lightly before stepping into his room. “Hey,” he says, and Roxas looks up as Vanitas enters.

“Hey.”

“I saw Hayner on his way out,” he says, approaching Roxas’s bed and leaning against the wall next to it. “What happened there?”

“He wanted to talk,” Roxas says, taking his hitter and digging it into the grinder more aggressively than Vanitas deems necessary. “Said he was sorry." 

“Did he say what’s been going on with Seifer?” Vanitas asks, and Roxas shrugs.

“He claims they’re just friends. I don’t know if I believe him.”

Vanitas grabs the lighter from Roxas’s bedside table and hands it to him when he sees the blonde looking around for it. “Well, what do you think?”

Roxas sighs. “I don’t know what I think. Obviously I want to believe him, I love him, but I just feel like there’s something else there.” Vanitas watches him take a hit before breathing out a cloud of smoke. “I don’t know what I should do. I told him I need time, and to come back in a week.”

Vanitas nods, Roxas’s words having a certain finality to them and he knows he shouldn’t ask anything else about the subject. “How’s Ven?”

Roxas smiles a bit, though it seems sad to Vanitas. “He’s okay. He seems sad whenever I talk to him. I think he’s still mad at me, but he is my brother, you know? I think he knows he has to talk to me. He brings you up a lot, though.”

Vanitas’s heart stings at those words. “What do you mean?”

Roxas shrugs. “Just in conversation. Like, if I ask if he wants to go for lunch at College Square, he’ll say that you guys went there once. Stuff like that.”

Vanitas nods, taking the hitter from Roxas and digging it into the grinder. “I’m glad he’s okay, then.”

Roxas watches him take a hit before he says anything. “I think he misses you.” Vanitas chokes on smoke, coughing a few times, to Roxas’s apparent amusement. “Chill, man. Ven’s a softie. He’ll forgive you eventually.”

Vanitas nods, still lightly coughing. “I hope so.”

Eventually turns out to be way longer than Vanitas could have hoped for, though. It’d been nearly a month when he gets a phone call at around 2:30a.m on a Friday night, and the name on his screen makes his heart drop. He answers nervously, unsure of what to expect. They’ve exchanged a few words in awkward conversation, but he and Ventus hadn’t actually spoken in almost four weeks.

“Hello?” He asks, nervously, half asleep and not sure of what to expect.

“Vani, can you help me?”

The conversation ends with Vanitas agreeing to pick up Ventus’s drunk ass from a party, making it there with only slight troubles from Ventus’s shitty drunken directions. He texts him that he’s outside, and after waiting for about 20 minutes and Ventus missing all of his calls, he decides to just head inside.

The party is inside a huge garage, with so many people inside that Vanitas can hardly even navigate through the crowds to try and find his ex boyfriend.

He finally manages to track him down as he hears chanting begin to start, pepole cheering on an apparent fight and he, being the responsible sober person at the party, decides to go make sure it’s nothing serious.

He ends up with his heart in his shoes as he makes it to the scene of the fight just in time to see Ventus get punched so hard he falls to the ground. Vanitas starts pushing through people to try and make it there, but it’s hard when everyone is shitfaced aside from him, and he has to watch Ven get his shit kicked _hard_ before he can break into the circle that’s formed around Ven and the guy he’s fighting. He starts trying to force them apart, which winds up with the guy with striped black and gray hair giving Vanitas a shiner of his own. Vanitas hits the ground right next to Ven, grabbing the blonde by his forearm and dragging him away from the much bigger, much _older_ guy who seems like he’s trying his hardest to ensure Ven ends up in the ICU. He manages to drag Ven away only as someone grabs the guy and pulls him away from them, and Ven groans as Vanitas hoists him to his feet.

“I’ll get you out of here, Ven, but you gotta help me out, okay?”

Ven’s eyes are droopy, he’s drunk and just got his shit pummeled, but he seems to at least be trying to help Vanitas drag him out of the party, though he’s in pretty rough shape so he doesn’t help a whole lot.

He finally manages to get Ven into the passenger side of the vehicle and buckle him in, before crossing over to his own side. He gets into the car, turns the lights on, and manages to get his first good look at the status of Ven’s injuries.

He’s got a cut on his cheek that’s bleeding, though it doesn’t seem too bad, one of his eyes are black, and his lip is slightly swollen. He still looks beautiful despite this, Vanitas notices, and Ventus seems like he’s on the verge of passing out. “Are you okay? Should I bring you to the hospital?”

Ven shakes his head slightly, holding a hand to his forehead. “Wanna go home.”

Vanitas nods, feeling his own bruised eye start to sting a little as he drives them both home. They make it there slowly but surely, Vanitas taking his time to ensure he doesn’t make Ven puke from motion sickness, until he pulls in the driveway. By that point Ven had already fallen asleep, and Vanitas takes it upon himself to help him out of the car and carry him into the house.

He makes it into the door and up the stairs before Ven starts making any movement. “I’m awake, ya know. I just wanted you to carry me,” he slurs, and Vanitas chuckles lightly.

“Asshole.”

“Can’t help it. You’re pretty,” Ven says, though it’s muffled and Vanitas barely makes it out because Ventus shoves his face into Vanitas’s black t-shirt. His heart flutters just a little as he makes it to Ven’s door.

“Need help getting into bed?” He asks, and Ventus shakes his head.

“Take me to your bed.”

Vanitas pauses for a moment before speaking. “Ven, I’m not-”

“Shut up, Vani. I wanna stay with you. Can I stay with you?”

Ven’s words are slurred, he’s still drunk and probably delusional and Vanitas knows it’s the alcohol talking for him, but he can’t bring himself to take advantage of his drunkness, no matter how in love with him he is. “You’re drunk, Ventus.”

Ven picks his head up just enough that Vanitas can see into his eyes, and the blonde smiles, poking Vanitas once in the cheek. “So?”

“I’m not taking advantage of you. Sorry, kid.”

Ventus pouts, and Vanitas lightly sets him down in his bed, pulling the blankets over his ex boyfriend’s body. “Remember the first night you slept in here?”

Vanitas blushes with a small smile, hoping it’s dark enough that Ven can’t see it. “Yeah, I remember.”

“I was in love with you then, too.”

Vanitas doesn’t exactly know how to respond, and by the time he even opens his mouth to say anything, Ventus is already snoring.

He laughs once, to himself. He walks towards the door, casting one look over his shoulder before he does so.

“Goodnight, Ven.”

 

* * *

 

Vanitas wakes up the next morning later than he usually does.

He checks the clock and realizes that it’s almost noon, and he jumps out of bed, wondering how the hell he could have let himself sleep in so late. Then he remembers the events of last night, being up until past 3 with Ventus, and he feels slightly less bad about it. 

He throws on a pair of sweatpants overtop of the boxers he slept in and heads down the stairs. He makes it to the kitchen, opening the fridge and slightly regretting not putting a shirt on. He’s digging around in the freezer when he hears a voice behind him saying his name, causing him to jump a little and slam his head on the shelf above him.

“Third times a charm, I guess,” the boy laughs, and Vanitas turns to see Ventus behind him, laughing slightly.

“Yeah, you gotta stop scaring me,” Vanitas jokes in response, and there’s an awkward moment of silence between the two of them. “So, you feeling okay?”

Ventus’s face still looks pretty bad, and Vanitas hadn’t had a chance that morning to look at himself in the mirror before deciding he wanted lunch.

“Yeah, besides the excruciating pain in my face,” Ven chuckles, and Vanitas cracks a small smile.

“What was that fight about, anyway?”

Ventus shrugs. “Xigbar found out I’m gay, called me a few not-so-nice words. I figured I may as well stand up for myself.”

“Was that before or after you called me?”

“After. I was gonna just ignore it and head home, but he kept saying shit and eventually I just wound up decking him. We started fighting a few minutes before you showed up, I think.”

Vanitas nods. “Well, good for you for standing up for yourself, but maybe you shouldn’t escalate things to physical voilence?”

Ventus shrugs again. “It felt pretty good, though.”

They lapse into silence again, and it takes a few moments for Ventus to break it.

“I’m sorry about last night. After we got home.”

Vanitas shrugs, trying his best to play it cool. “It’s all good, don’t worry about it.”

Ventus nods, looking thoughtful. “Thanks for saving me, though. Who knows the kind of damage Xigbar would’ve done had you not.”

Vanitas shrugs. “It’s the least I can do for the shit I’ve done.”

Ventus’s face softens just a little. “I don’t know about that. I think I thought it was way worse at the time.” Vanitas shuffles his feet a little, unsure of what to say. “Sorry, I know I probably shouldn’t-”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Vanitas says, cutting him off. “Besides, awkward kitchen conversations are kind of our thing.”

Ventus smiles. “Yeah, I guess so.” They lapse into silence again, before Ventus gets a text and looks slightly frazzled. “Sorry, I gotta go. But hey, do you… Do you wanna go get a coffee or something sometime? Maybe this week?”

Vanitas has to take a moment before formulating an answer to the sudden question. “Yeah, sure. I’d like that." 

“Me too,” Ven says, walking past Vanitas and brushing his shoulder enough to make give him goosebumps.

He waits for Ven to leave and close the door behind him before taking off up the stairs to Roxas’s room.

He throws the door open without thinking to knock, luckily Roxas is just sitting at his desk studying for exams. “Hey Vani, ever heard of knocking?” Roxas asks lazily, and Vanitas rolls his eyes as he sits on Roxas’s bed.

“Ven wants to go for coffee this week.”

Roxas turns his chair around to face Vanitas with a raised eyebrow. “Well, that’s surprising.”

“What do you mean?”

“Last I talked to him, he said he needed more time before talking to you about anything.”

“You guys talked about me?”

Roxas sighs, leaning his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “I told you before that Ven brings you up all the time. He said he wants to get back together, at some point, but he doesn’t wanna jump into it again when he doesn’t fully trust you.”

Vanitas’s rare optimism falters, though he knows he should have expected something like that. “Fair enough, I guess. So what do you think I should do?”

Roxas shrugs. “Let him figure himself out? I mean, you did cheat on him-”

“I thought we were broken up,” Vanitas defends himself, and Roxas holds his hands up innocently, though he can tell the blonde is holding back a smile.

“Just give him time. You guys will figure it out.”

 

* * *

 

Vanitas meets Ventus for coffee that Wednesday.

He arrives at the small cafe that Ventus texted him, and he walks in to see the most hipster coffee place he could have ever imagined. He looks around to see Ven distracted on his phone, and approaches him slowly.

“This is the most _Ventus_ place I’ve ever seen,” he says, pulling up a chair and pulling Ven out of his concentration.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Vanitas shrugs. “Little twinkly lights, mismatched mugs, the fact that half the people in here are wearing overalls,” he lists off, and Ven rolls his eyes.

“I like my overalls, thank you very much.”

“You would,” Vanitas smiles, and Ven smiles back, just a bit. “So, what’s this business meeting for?”

Ven sighs, turning off his phone and setting it face down on the table and Vanitas realizes this may just be more serious than he gave it credit for. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“What’s that?”

“Something that’s been bugging me for a while. And I need you to be honest, okay?”

“Okay,” Vanitas says cautiously, only at that moment beginning to worry.

“Did you only date me because I look like Roxas?”

Vanitas freezes at Ventus’s question, wondering if Roxas told Ven what he’d said to him the night he and Ven broke up. He takes a moment before responding. “Of course not.”

“I mean, the minute we had a fight you ran right to him, you were in love with him for two years, it just seems like-”

“Ventus, listen to me,” Vanitas says, placing a hand on one of Ven’s. “I dated you because you’re you. I had two years to make something happen with Roxas, and nothing ever did. I don’t love Roxas, Ven. I love you.”

Ven pauses for a moment, as if he’s trying to find truth in Vanitas’s words. “You’ve never said that to me before.”

“I didn’t really get a chance to before you ran out from dinner on me,” Vanitas says with a small smile, but Ventus doesn’t return it.

“Why did you never want to tell anyone?”

Vanitas shrugs, leaning back in his chair. “This is my first time dating a guy, Ven. I was scared. You literally got the _shit_ beat out of you last week just for _being_ gay.”

“To be fair, I did start that fight.”

Vanitas rolls his eyes. “My point still stands. I’ve been in some _really_ bad places before. I didn’t want to end up back there just because people are assholes, you know?”

Ven looks like he’s deep in thought. “I guess that makes sense. But you made me feel like _shit_ every time you dropped my hand when you saw someone in public, or lied to a waitress about us being just friends, or made out with Roxas at a club when you kept our relationship a secret for _five months._ That hurt, Vani.”

Vanitas nods once. “I’m sorry, Ven. I really am. But Roxas could walk into this coffee shop right now and get down on one knee and ask me to marry him, and you know what I’d say?”

Ven raises an eyebrow at him.

“I’d say, yes Roxas, let’s run away to Greece together and have five kids and-”

Ventus smacks him upside the head, though he’s very clearly holding down a smile and Vanitas laughs. “Roxas could literally drop from the sky with a bouquet of roses, and I’d still pick you.” Ven’s smile fades, and he looks down at the table. Vanitas reaches forward and puts a hand on Ven’s. “I’ll always pick you, Ven.”

Ventus looks up, and if there wasn’t a table separating them, Vanitas would have kissed him then and there. “You’re a hopeless romantic, you know.”

Vanitas laughs, shaking his head. “Am I hopeless?”

Ventus shrugs, taking a moment to answer as he stirs his coffee around with a spoon. “I don’t know, Vani. I was hoping talking to you would help me sort out my head but I think it just made things worse. But, man, I miss you. I didn’t think i’d miss you this much.”

Vanitas nods, though he isn’t exactly sure how to feel based on Ventus’s statement. “Take your time, Ven. I’ll still be here. I’ll wait as long as you need.”

He wants to stay, he wants to keep up the first full conversation he and Ven have had in over a month, but he knows Ven needs space and he knows that he has to make the choice himself.

But he wasn’t lying. Vanitas knows, if it’s for Ven, he’ll wait as long as it takes.

 

* * *

 

Watching Roxas forgive Hayner proves hard when Ventus seems to be all but avoiding even saying hello to Vanitas.

It seems like the blonde wants nothing to do with him despite the seemingly optimistic coffee shop conversation. Vanitas knows he needs to let Ven figure things out on his own, but it’s hard when the love of his life has admitted to missing him and they’re _still_ not together. Vanitas thinks that’s pretty unfair, but it’s not really his place, and he knows that. So he leaves it be, which proves to be way harder than it was before Ven told him he still loves him.

On one particularly bad night, Vanitas finds himself sitting in his room thinking about everything wrong with his life. There’s a lot of good, but there’s also Sora fighting the same depression that nearly claimed Vanitas’s life when he was Sora’s age, he seems to miss Xion more and more every day, Roxas and Hayner are back together which makes Vanitas feel even _worse_ being without Ventus, and the fact that he’s without Ventus in general. Each problem is able to tower over the others depending on the day, and today’s most prevalent problem is Xion.

Vanitas sends Sora a text asking the boy to join him in visiting her grave, something Vanitas does quite a bit but he knows Sora isn’t too keen on. He says no, the reason being soccer practice, and Vanitas knows he should’ve expected that but he still feels unsure at the prospect of going alone.

He ends up deciding against it, not feeling mentally prepared to subject himself to that kind of sadness on purpose, but makes a mental note to do so within the next week or so.

He heads downstairs to find Hayner sitting on the couch, legs up on the coffee table and Roxas’s hitter in his hand. “Hey, Vani,” Hayner greets, and Vanitas plops himself down on the couch next to him and huffs a sigh. “Uh oh,” Hayner says, sitting up to look at Vanitas in the eyes. “What’s got you down, kid?”

Vanitas sighs, leaning back on the couch and looking up at the roof. “I don’t think Ven is ever gonna forgive me.”

Hayner laughs once, clasping a hand on Vanitas’s shoulder. “Ah, lighten up, man. He just needs time.”

Vanitas groans, loudly, and Hayner laughs again. “It’s been a month and a half, Hayner! An entire month plus an entire half of one month. That’s a long time. I don’t want to wait anymore.”

“Then tell him that,” Hayner shrugs, as if it’s the easiest thing in the fucking world.

Vanitas groans again, putting his hands on his face. “I can’t. I’m the one who hurt him, I have to fucking pay for it. And, oh man, am I ever paying for it. Do you know how much it sucks knowing he’s two doors down from me and I still can’t have him? It fucking sucks, Hayner. I hate it. Tell him to stop being an asshole.”

“I mean, okay,” Hayner starts, going to stand up. Vanitas jumps, grabbing his arm and hauling him back down onto the couch. Hayner laughs, sinking into the cushions, and Vanitas’s hands go back to his face. “Chill out, Vani. Everything will work itself out, I promise. Look at me and Roxas, I didn’t think he’d ever forgive me.”

“For moving in with your side chick?” Vanitas asks lightly, and he looks at Hayner to see a slightly disgruntled look on the brown eyed boy’s face.

“Nothing was ever going on with me and Seifer,” Hayner says. “I don’t know if Roxas even fully believes that, but he’s back with me regardless. I’ve known Seifer for years, he’s just a friend. He’s too good of a friend for anything to ever happen, and I’ve told Roxas that a few times. I just want him to trust me, you know?”

Vanitas nods. “We have opposite problems, I think.” Hayner’s silent for a moment, like he’s pondering something. Vanitas sits up, raising an eyebrow at him. “You good?”

Hayner takes another moment before saying anything. “Let’s get trashed.”

So they do. Vanitas and Hayner start up a household favourite, the iCarly drinking game that Hayner had stumbled across one night on r/badfuckingideas, Vanitas assumes, and despite that they always have a fucking riot.

Roxas and Ventus arrive home a few episodes in, and immediately sit down and join in. Before long all four of them are drunk, Roxas laying on Hayner’s lap and Vanitas sitting close enough to Ventus that it hurts more than if he’d been on the other side of the room. If he moves just an inch or two closer, they’d be touching, and there’s nothing Vanitas could want more than that.

It takes Ventus around 6 shots and Hayner and Roxas heading upstairs to get to a point of drunkness to openly communicate with Vanitas. He winds up being the first to touch Vanitas, shuffling a little closer until their arms are pushed against each other and Ventus’s head is laying on Vanitas’s shoulder. Vanitas is drunk, too, enough that falling into bed with Ventus would be excusable and not considered taking advantage of him, and he wonders if Ventus will be as willing that night as he was the last time he was this drunk.

“Hey, Vani?” Ven asks softly, and Vanitas jumps just a bit.

“Yeah?" 

Ventus sighs, picking his head up to look at Vanitas in the eyes. Or rather, attempt to look Vanitas in the eyes, because whenever Ventus gets drunk his eyes always droop to a point where Vanitas isn’t sure if the blonde boy can even see. “I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you mean?”

Ventus looks as deep in thought as a drunken Ventus can be for a moment. “I’m in love with you, right? And I think you’re in love with me. Are you?” Vanitas doesn’t exactly know how to react in that moment, Ventus’s drunk statements throwing him for a loop. Ventus doesn’t even seem like he notices the lack of response, though. “Anyway, so there’s this problem that I kinda want to strip you down right now but if I do that then I don’t think I’ll ever be able to not do that. And I don’t know if we can ever be together again, Vani, I don’t know and it’s really shitty because I know you’re waiting for me and I can’t make up my stupid mind.”

Vanitas’s heart sinks just a bit. “So this whole time you’ve just been stringing me along, then?”

Ventus looks up, his eyes widening a little. “No, that’s not what I meant. I just… I don’t know, Vani. I don’t want you to hurt me again.”

“And what about me? You don’t think you’re hurting me? I’m trying, Ven, I really am, but I don’t know what else I can do to prove to you that I’m good enough. If you don’t want to be with me just fucking say so. Stop letting me think you’re coming back when you don’t even fucking know what you’re doing.”

“I thought you were okay with waiting,” Ventus says, hurt creeping into his voice but Vanitas is just so _tired_ of being around him but not with him that he doesn’t even know what he’s saying anymore.

“You can’t keep me waiting forever, Ven. Make up your mind or stop fucking leading me on.”

Ventus just blinks a few times. Vanitas isn’t drunk enough to miss the glassiness of his eyes, but he’s pissed off enough that he doesn’t care. He gets to his feet and walks towards the door, Ventus scrambling to his feet after him. Vanitas slams the door behind him, not turning when he hears it reopen. “Vanitas, wait-”

Vanitas whips around, for the first time feeling angry with Ven. “I’m tired of waiting, Ventus! I don’t want to do it anymore! I can’t wake up in the same house as you every day and not be able to touch you even though we’re both fully aware of how we feel about each other! I’m sorry, Ven, I know I hurt you and I know you need time, but I just _can’t_ wait around for something that I’m not even sure will come back. I’m dealing with so much shit, and most of it’s the fact that I don’t know where the fuck your head’s at. It’s like you never want anything to do with me until you’re drunk off your ass and then you’re begging me to sleep with you. I may have hurt you, Ven, but never _once_ was I unsure about us. Not once. So don’t fucking tell me you need time as if you’re the only one who’s hurting!”

Ventus is silent, and from where he’s standing Vanitas isn’t sure if he’s imagining the tears falling from Ventus’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too. Not like it fucking matters.”

Vanitas turns, walking off down the road ignoring Ventus calling after him until he’s out of earshot, then takes out his phone and calls Sora.

His brother’s asleep, though luckily isn’t the type to put his phone on silent. He shows up within 20 minutes, picking Vanitas up from the curb he’s sitting on and bringing him back to their grandparents’ without a word exchanged between them. Vanitas is grateful for this, if nothing else.

He thanks Sora for the ride and heads upstairs to his old bedroom, falling asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. He wakes up the next morning to a few missed calls and texts from Ven, and one from Roxas. He responds to Roxas, letting him know he’s alive and where he is, before heading downstairs.

“Hey, Vani. I made you pancakes.”

Vanitas smiles at Sora, though his head is pounding from a hangover headache. “Thanks, Sora. For rescuing me and for the pancakes.”

Sora smiles back, turning back to washing the dishes in the sink. Vanitas sits at the table and drenches the pancakes in syrup before digging in.

“What happened last night?” Sora asks, and Vanitas takes as long as he can to swallow his breakfast before responding.

“Just got in an argument with my roommates,” Vanitas says, as if Sora doesn’t know them all personally and not just as Vanitas’s roommates.

“About what? You seemed really messed up when I picked you up.”

Vanitas sighs, turning in his chair to look at Sora, who’s leaning his back against the counter and facing Vanitas. “You want the long version or the short one?”

Vanitas ends up giving him the short version anyway, condensing it to _me and Ventus broke up,_ and because Sora didn’t know he and Ven were even dating, this raises a lot more questions, and Vanitas has to tell Sora to _shut up_ as his brother rambles on about always being out of the loop. “I don’t really want to talk about it, Sora.”

Sora nods, seeming to understand, and the two lapse into silence until Vanitas remembers that Sora has issues of his own. “What’s going on with Riku and Kairi?”

Sora smiles just a bit. “I think we’re finally good, actually. Surprisingly.”

Vanitas smiles as much as he can muster despite his shitty mood. “That’s good. I’m glad. I knew you guys would work it out.”

Sora nods, looking towards the door as someone knocks. “I got it.”

Vanitas turns back to his plate of pancakes and begins stuffing his face again as Sora answers the door.

“Vani, it’s for you.”

Vanitas looks up at Sora, though he can’t see who’s on the other side of the door. He gets up and walks over as Sora walks away, and he nearly slams the door when he sees Ventus on the other side of it. “Vani, wait.”

“I don’t want to hear it, Ventus,” Vanitas says, glaring at him and wondering how their situation completely flipped overnight.

“Me and Roxas had a long ass talk last night after you left. I just want to talk, but if you really want me to go, I’ll go.”

Vanitas pauses for a moment. After what feels like forever, he finally wills his body to move, stepping onto the porch and closing the door behind him. “So talk.”

Ventus looks like he doesn’t even know where to start. “I miss you, Vani, and I’ve been a real asshole. And so have you, but that’s not the point. I think, at this point, we’ve both fucked up with each other, but I don’t know if either of us has fucked up enough to just throw everything away. I don’t think I want to lose you.”

“Sounds like you still haven’t made your mind up.”

“I don’t want to lose you. That good?”

Vanitas hesitates, searching Ven’s blue eyes to find some kind of truth in them. “Ven, I don’t-”

“If there’s anything left of us, Vani, we can do this. I swear we can do this. It took almost losing you completely for me to realize exactly what I’d be giving up. That, and Roxas.”

Roxas seems to be a prevalent cause in a lot of things that happen between Ventus and Vanitas. Without him, Vanitas never would have fallen in love with Ventus in the first place. Without him, Vanitas never would have fucked up everything they had, Ventus never would have lost trust in him. Now Roxas is a lot of what’s brought them back together, and Vanitas wonders how to _fuck_ the guy he’d been unrequitedly in love with for so long could have all but thrown him headfirst into the arms of Ventus, but despite not knowing shit about how messed up that situation is, he’s grateful.

“Roxas seems to be a deciding factor in a lot of things involving you and me.”

Ventus shrugs. “He knows what’s good for me.”

Vanitas nods. “Me too, I think.”

They lapse into silence, until Ventus raises his head to look at Vanitas. “So?”

Vanitas sighs.

“I need some time, Ven. I need to sort some shit out. I’m sorry.”

He has to look away to avoid seeing the hurt in Ven’s eyes.

“Okay.”

And he leaves.

Just like that.

 

* * *

 

Vanitas finds himself laying in the backyard of their house a few weeks after his talk with Ventus.

It’s past midnight, he’s sure, though he doesn’t know exactly how long he’s been laying in the grass staring up at the clear sky.

The stars are at their brightest, and Vanitas finds himself somehow feeling connected to a certain star just to the left of Orion’s belt. He stares at it for what seems like forever, until he hears the back door open and close and someone sit in the grass next to him.

“You’ve been out here for a while.”

Vanitas is silent for a moment before finding words to speak, eventually just pointing up at the star he’s been focusing on for who knows how long. “That one’s her.”

The person lays on the grass next to him their heads next to each other. “You think so?”

“I know so. I can feel it.”

“Good to know she’s still around, then. You okay?”

Vanitas looks at the star for a moment longer before sitting up, the person next to him doing the same. “I’m okay. I just miss her.”

He smiles, putting a hand on Vanitas’s arm comfortingly. “She’s still here.”

Vanitas nods, looking back at the sky. “I know.”

“You should come inside soon. Hayner made buffalo chicken dip. I bet you your entire savings account that he fucked it up.”

Vanitas laughs. “I’ll take that bet, solely because I only have about $7 in that account.”

They stand up, though neither of them starts walking towards the house. They just stand there, staring at each other, until it seems neither of them can take it anymore.

Vanitas grabs Ventus’s back at the same time Ventus grabs Vanitas’s neck and they fall into each other as if they’d been doing it their whole lives. Vanitas kisses Ventus like he’ll never be able to do it again, as if they don’t have their entire lives ahead of them to do just that.

It takes a while before they pull apart, Ventus’s forehead resting against Vanitas’s and they stay silent until Ven speaks up and Vanitas knows that he’s been worth the wait.

He’s worth 1000 years of waiting.

“I’ve missed you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORA IS SO SOFT
> 
> I almost. ALMOST. Didn't put a happy ending. Because I'm a trash human. So you're welcome for not doing that.
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed this!!! I put my heart and soul into this for a literal month so thank you for reading!!! You all rock!!


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